Products from years long gone

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

Today we had our semiregular Photo Engineers lunch, and I looked at and handled a whole range of old products.

One was a sealed box of 'fresh' Autochrome film dated 1920. That item was being donated to George Eastman House by one of our 'members'.

The other was the entire Kodak contact paper guide. It listed and had sample pictures on every version of Azo, Velite and Velox paper in about 3x4 on about 4x5 sheets and dry mounted back to back in a very nice booklet. There were about 16 of each product in this book. We spent a lot of time trying to see 'depth' in the Azo prints.

There were some beautiful examples in that product book. You should have been there! Don't you wish you were? Warm tone suede Azo in grades from 0 - 5, Matte, DW, SW, Silk, etc..... Very lush looking picture samples.

PE

Rlibersky · Jan 16, 2008

Did they have Aristo? How about some of the milatary stuff. Would have loved to be there. Oh well. if there is ever a oppurtunity to see the examples in Minnesota let me know.

eddym · Jan 16, 2008

Aw PE, now you've gone and made me nostalgic! I pulled out my old 1974 Kodak Darkroom Dataguide and looked at all the paper samples inside.
Three Ektalure surfaces: E, X, and K. All gorgeous, although the surface of the G paper is cracking.
Medalist J, one of my old favorites.
Portralure, another nice warmtone paper, but I never got to try it.
The paper list shows Azo available in F, N, and E surfaces, in both single- and double-weights.
Lots of good papers, long gone. Sigh...

sun of sand · Jan 16, 2008

Hey, this fits right in with a question I wanted to ask
Kodak contact paper from years past ..used by the military -at least- in 4x5 size and called "aero-contact"

I've researched as much as possible over the internet and all I can find is a couple posts concerning another paper packaged up in the same way only it's Convira. I think I've read that Convira was the equal to Azo. Is this stuff then likely to be Azo? More likely to be one of the other Kodak contact papers?

Ian Grant · Jan 16, 2008

The Lumière Brother's Autochromes need to be seen to be believed, the colour qualities of the images are exquisite, I doubt a product like that could be made today. The original Lumiere plant became part of the Ciba-Ilford setup in the arly 1960's, today Lumiere Imaging are the distributors of Ilford materials in France. (Lumiere in Rochester, NY, is a young Pretender)

George Eastman House is an exceptional museum and resource, I walked there once from my hotel a mile away asking the way I was told jokingly you must be European - Americans don't walk, the Italian I asked was working on a little know aspect of GEH, curating the extensive music collection.

It would be great to have a proper look at the archives in GEH. We don't have anything like it in Europe.

Ian

eddym · Jan 16, 2008

eddym said:
Three Ektalure surfaces: E, X, and K. All gorgeous, although the surface of the G paper is cracking.

Oops, that was the G surface that was cracking.

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

Kodak Aero contact was part of the discussion. It and a companion Haloid product were some of the first RC based papers ever made. I have seen in in 9x9 and 9x18". The Lumiere in Rochester is not even related and had to change their name recently due to some Copyright problem (I think I have that correct).

I have a box of processed Lumiere Autochrome 3D slides sitting next to me, but the ones I saw today were unexposed in the original sealed box. They were on their way to GEH archives I guess.

Many original cellulose nitrate based motion pictures are stored at GEH and the building is carefully fire and explosion proofed. The vault is supposedly directly under the entrance and the collection there is worth an astronomical sum.

We also talked about Kodak "Stretchable Film" --- Don't even ask!

Ian, I have walked nearly the full length of East Avenue when I lived near GEH. I used to walk downtown.

PE

pentaxuser · Jan 16, 2008

PE. I am glad you started this thread. It has prompted me to repeat a question I asked about Verichrome Pan recently but got no answers. I developed a roll of 120 Verichrome Pan which another APUGer stated that as it has crimson backing paper with yellow writing he knew it to be from around the late 1950s to early 60s.

The emulsion didn't have any code on it( well, none that I could see) such as Ilford films now do, to help Ilford establish a production date. So is there any way or contact within Kodak who can at least say when Verichrome Pan 120 with crimson backing paper and yellow cursive script writing was last produced. It will at least eastablish the latest date of the film that I developed. I have kept the backing paper so if there is anything useful there that I have missed I can find it if required.

Thanks

pentaxuser

sun of sand · Jan 16, 2008

Thanks, PE. Any idea on what type of emulsion it is? I know Azo and Convira emulsion was put onto other papers like Ad-Type and Novosomething which I believe were flexible weight papers

Is it an Azo or similar RC? Any super-duper qualities? This paper was from late 40's and I'm pondering whether or not to buy any. No idea what the coating would do to an emulsion in terms of its keeping qualities
I've read about a Mexican RC Azo or something like that ..sounds like it kinda sucked a little.

I've never been to GEH. I wanted to catch the ansel show but know there are plenty of other wonderful things to check out

One Day

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

pentaxuser said:
PE. I am glad you started this thread. It has prompted me to repeat a question I asked about Verichrome Pan recently but got no answers. I developed a roll of 120 Verichrome Pan which another APUGer stated that as it has crimson backing paper with yellow writing he knew it to be from around the late 1950s to early 60s.

The emulsion didn't have any code on it( well, none that I could see) such as Ilford films now do, to help Ilford establish a production date. So is there any way or contact within Kodak who can at least say when Verichrome Pan 120 with crimson backing paper and yellow cursive script writing was last produced. It will at least eastablish the latest date of the film that I developed. I have kept the backing paper so if there is anything useful there that I have missed I can find it if required.

Thanks

pentaxuser

George Eastman House has curators with that type of knowledge. But, you might call the EK toll free number.

Early films had all information on the box. Nothing was on the film but Kodak Safety Film and sometimes a product name.

PE

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

sun of sand said:
Thanks, PE. Any idea on what type of emulsion it is? I know Azo and Convira emulsion was put onto other papers like Ad-Type and Novosomething which I believe were flexible weight papers

Is it an Azo or similar RC? Any super-duper qualities? This paper was from late 40's and I'm pondering whether or not to buy any. No idea what the coating would do to an emulsion in terms of its keeping qualities
I've read about a Mexican RC Azo or something like that ..sounds like it kinda sucked a little.

I've never been to GEH. I wanted to catch the ansel show but know there are plenty of other wonderful things to check out

One Day

I have no idea what kind of emulsion was used in Aero contact papers, but from the slow speed and high intensity printers, I would assume it was an Azo type emulsion, or even Velox. It was not likely to be Velite. IDK what keeping would be like.

PE

pentaxuser · Jan 16, 2008

Photo Engineer said:
George Eastman House has curators with that type of knowledge. But, you might call the EK toll free number.

Early films had all information on the box. Nothing was on the film but Kodak Safety Film and sometimes a product name.

PE

PE Thanks. Toll free from the U.K.? and if so what's the number?

pentaxuser

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

Yes, there is a toll free number in the UK and should be on all boxes of Kodak film. Their plant is located in Harrow. You could probably call them directly without too much difficulty.

PE

sun of sand · Jan 16, 2008

Thanks, PE. Always helpful.

The Haloid RC paper was mentioned in a shutterbug article ..not liked very much. It seemed to the writer to be a paper only suitable for quick viewing of negatives, not art.

This is a neat PDF I just read through
Dead Link Removed

On page 41 of 50 it mentions Kodaks "first" RC paper
Kodak Kind 1594. Early 60's. Military use. Kodabromide-like emulsion. Maybe it was a projection paper and not a contact one, though.
Perhaps Kodak just didn't call those WWII era papers RC? Mentions Kodak Resisto ..which was coated with a cellulose acetate and then converting to an RC base later on

Photo Engineer · Jan 16, 2008

One of the first RC papers from Kodak was Verifax.

Kodak had several papers intended for rapid processing for military purposes. There were enlarging and contact papers. I have most of the old Air Force manuals here, but I have forgotten most of the content and don't have time to research it. None of these papers were intended for quality. They were intended for (among other things) BDA or Bomb Damage Asessment and we had to process this stuff quickly.

PE

Vaughn · Jan 17, 2008

I have a box of Azo, 10x10 (square), grade 4, F surface. "Expired" 3/78. An almost full box of 250 sheets. (cat # 142 1684)

I'll have to give it a try one of these days. Low contrast negatives are usually not one of my problems.

I assume due to the format, that it was for contacting 9x9 or 10x10 aireal photographs.

Vaughn

jgjbowen · Jan 17, 2008

Vaughn,

I think you will find that Azo grade 4 that is 30+ years old will print like the most recent grade 3. I did BTZS type testing on my grade 4 and the curve is nearly identical to newer grade 3, just a different speed. If my memory serves me well, (always a source of debate) I'm pretty sure the grade 4 was faster than the grade 3. But, as they say YMMV.

papermaker · Jan 17, 2008

eddym said:
Aw PE, now you've gone and made me nostalgic! I pulled out my old 1974 Kodak Darkroom Dataguide and looked at all the paper samples inside.
Three Ektalure surfaces: E, X, and K. All gorgeous, although the surface of the G paper is cracking.
Medalist J, one of my old favorites.
Portralure, another nice warmtone paper, but I never got to try it.
The paper list shows Azo available in F, N, and E surfaces, in both single- and double-weights.
Lots of good papers, long gone. Sigh...

In case anyone is interested in how these paper surfaces were made, I'm copying in here an earlier post I made about the availability of a booklet that describes the manufacturer and provides a general guide to the characteristics of the surfaces.

In 2006, I edited/authored a book (spiral bound booklet) titled History of the Paper Mills at Kodak Park which was intended as a memento for Kodak papermakers (the last papermachine was dismantled in 2005). I won't go into the details but that book led to lots of questions about the history of the fiber based B&W papers so I wrote a second book in 2007 titled A Guide to the Surface Characteristics, Kodak Fiber Based Black and White Papers. When doing research for the second book, I came across the APUG site. While I'm strictly a papermaker (retired), I was intrigued by some of the forums and have checked back a few times. That's how I came to this thread and thought there might be interest in the 2 books. One caution, however, the books are about manufacturing paper support and there is nothing about emulsions, emulsion coating, or photo products (subjects I don't know much about). Both books are available at no charge though I do ask that requestors cover the mailing costs. If you would like a copy or want more info you can contact me at KitFunderburk@gmail.com. I'd also be happy to try to answer questions here if that is appropriate for this forum.

Respectfully,
Kit Funderburk

Photo Engineer · Jan 17, 2008

Kit was there at our lunch meeting.

PE

Neanderman · Jan 17, 2008

papermaker said:
In case anyone is interested in how these paper surfaces were made, I'm copying in here an earlier post I made about the availability of a booklet that describes the manufacturer and provides a general guide to the characteristics of the surfaces.

I received copies of both of these books about a week ago. If you have any interest at all in industrial processes or photo product history, I heartily recommend them.

Ed

sun of sand · Jan 29, 2008

That's pretty cool about the booklets.

How much shipping to Batavia, Kit?

Looks like I'll just have to e-mail later

ooze · Jan 30, 2008

Have you checked out Silverprint's (a UK B&W materials supplier) tests with 50 year old Agfa Gevalux paper? It's a nice small piece, well worth a read.
http://www.silverprint.co.uk, go to "News" and then Archive#1.

Cheers,
omar

papermaker · Jan 30, 2008

sun of sand said:
That's pretty cool about the booklets.

How much shipping to Batavia, Kit?

Looks like I'll just have to e-mail later

For those interested, postage to anywhere in the US is $4.60 using a Flate Rate mailing envelope (both booklets will fit in one envelope). The rate for Canada has been $9.00 to the places I've mailed to and most of Western Europe is $11.00. Its most convenient if you make a request via the e-mail address (kitfunderburk@gmail.com) in order to arrange for mailing addresses.

Stephen Frizza · Feb 3, 2008

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak Aero contact was part of the discussion. It and a companion Haloid product were some of the first RC based papers ever made. I have seen in in 9x9 and 9x18". The Lumiere in Rochester is not even related and had to change their name recently due to some Copyright problem (I think I have that correct).

I have a box of processed Lumiere Autochrome 3D slides sitting next to me, but the ones I saw today were unexposed in the original sealed box. They were on their way to GEH archives I guess.

Many original cellulose nitrate based motion pictures are stored at GEH and the building is carefully fire and explosion proofed. The vault is supposedly directly under the entrance and the collection there is worth an astronomical sum.

We also talked about Kodak "Stretchable Film" --- Don't even ask!

Ian, I have walked nearly the full length of East Avenue when I lived near GEH. I used to walk downtown.

PE

stretchable film? DONT--- Dont even ask! HOW COULD WE NOT!!!!

Products from years long gone

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