Searching for a Film Name

AgX · Aug 12, 2019

Funny... a firm of german descent calls it american, while Kodak in the 30s in Germany advertised their films and cameras as german-made.

Garthoz · Aug 12, 2019

I bought the film from the most upmarket (and from memory only) photographic shop in Stafford, called Peter Rogers Photgraphic. I think the packaging (35mm) was an odd deep brown/red colour. Also on reflection I think the year range was actually 1958-1965

AgX · Aug 13, 2019

Now we can start over again...

Ian Grant · Aug 13, 2019

AgX said:
Funny... a firm of german descent calls it american, while Kodak in the 30s in Germany advertised their films and cameras as german-made.

Kodak did make cameras in Germany before and after WWII, however the films sold in Germany were made in the UK and for a very short time Hungary, but sold by Kodak Ltd (UK) via their German subsidiary.

GAF was formerly Ansco (Antony and Scoville) and only under German (Agfa) ownership for around 13 years. Scoville (a spin off) are still trading but not making anything photographic, I have a box of Scoville steel pins. Ansco were making film and paprer many years before the take over by Agfa and in fact Eastman Kodak had to settle a Patent infringement (for transparent film) with them around 1905. Their roots go back to 1842 quite a few years before Kodak

The classic American company with German roots is C.P. Goerz American Optical set up by Goerz's sons initially to distribute the German Berlin made lenses and cameras. Soon lenses were made in the US as well, the sons had become US citizens so you have the irony of C.P. Goerz Berlin supplying the German forces in WW1 and the sons C.P. Gorz Am. Opt. supplying the American forces.

Ian

AgX · Aug 13, 2019

Ian Grant said:
Kodak did make cameras in Germany before and after WWII, however the films sold in Germany were made in the UK and for a very short time Hungary, but sold by Kodak Ltd (UK) via their German subsidiary.

No, Kodak made films in Germany for decades, from about 1927 to 1956.

Ian Grant · Aug 13, 2019

AgX said:
No, Kodak made films in Germany for decades, from about 1927 to 1956.

Memory lapse Kodak Ltd coated in the UK and their affiliated plants in Germany and then Hungary.

Ian

pentaxuser · Aug 13, 2019

I would doubt if a provincial shop advertised its stock in any national magazine so that may be a dead-end. Ideally the shop still exists and is run by a descendant of the original 1950s owner but this is a very long shot as well.

There may be two other avenues. Do you have any friends from that period in Stafford whom you still have contact with? If you were keen on the product whose name you cannot remember may be you mentioned it enough times to those friends that they will recall its name. Surprisingly friends can often recall things that you can't

Can you find out if there are any camera club(s) in the area that existed in the late 50- mid 60s who may still have member who can recall the product?

All very long shots that will at best require a lot of effort.

Best of luck

pentaxuser

railwayman3 · Aug 20, 2019

Don't trivial things irritate you when you can't remember an answer !

I think we've accounted for the names of all branded films made by every major manufacturer. My guess remains that it was a local own-brand label, perhaps made by Ferrania, maybe even for one store or a small group of stores.....there must have been hundreds of these. In larger groups in the UK I can recall such as Tesco, Boots, Sainsbury, Shell, National Trust, Jessop, Jacobs, and many others.

Agulliver · Aug 21, 2019

I've certainly come across film from the 60s and 70s branded with the name of camera shops or photo processors. In the 70s and 80s, Photo Trade Processing of Stevenage handled all the Dixon's processing and related services and also gave away "free with D&P" their "Prinz Color" brand of film.....later changing to their own "Horizon" brand. But if you weren't around at the time, you wouldn't remember this or necessarily know it. It would have been easy then to do a quick deal with any number of film manufacturers to run off film which was essentially unbranded, packed in boxes which said "Gulliver's Cameras, Brobdingnag". So what the OP remembers might have been available only in one town/city or at best distributed among a small number of shops in a chain local to one county.

One interesting film I picked up last year was a 127 roll of "Superchrome panchromatic" branded "A.R. Bott & Sons Ltd, Leamington Spa" and "Made in England". The film expired in February 1971, and when I shot and developed it in 2018 it yielded quite acceptable photographs.

A little research shows that Herr Bott started a photographic business in Germany in the 20s, moved to Warwickshire in England and set up his photo business in Leamington Spa in the 30s and his grandson still ran the business as recently as 2006. It was then taken over by CeWe who *still* run the business but have moved it to Warwick 3 miles away. They seem to be all digital now but in the 70s were processing 700,000 films per year and had a line selling their own brand of films.

Isn't the interwebs a wonderful thing, at times?

railwayman3 · Aug 21, 2019

Agulliver said:
One interesting film I picked up last year was a 127 roll of "Superchrome panchromatic" branded "A.R. Bott & Sons Ltd, Leamington Spa" and "Made in England". The film expired in February 1971, and when I shot and developed it in 2018 it yielded quite acceptable photographs.

A little research shows that Herr Bott started a photographic business in Germany in the 20s, moved to Warwickshire in England and set up his photo business in Leamington Spa in the 30s and his grandson still ran the business as recently as 2006. It was then taken over by CeWe who *still* run the business but have moved it to Warwick 3 miles away. They seem to be all digital now but in the 70s were processing 700,000 films per year and had a line selling their own brand of films.

I can remember, as a very young schoolboy buying roll films made by A R Bott & Sons Ltd, at Woolworths, under the brand "Standard" ( IIRC, there may have been "Standard Pan" and "Standard Ortho", I'm not absolutely sure ?? ). I wonder if these films were actually coated by them at Leamington Spa, or whether they were an early example of own-branding made by another manufacturer, in which case "Made in England" could suggest Ilford ? IDK ?

In more recent years Cewe at Warwick did the processing of the "developing included" 35mm E6 films for Boots, possibly also Jessops, Fuji, and others ? The packing of the slides from the last few "Boots Colourslide" films which I sent to them up, to about four years ago, suggested that they may have centralised all their European E6 work in Germany ?

AgX · Aug 21, 2019

At least the E-6 films from Germany since a few years are only processed at one plant and then as batches in a hanger processor. As any non-C41 or non 135 films.

Agulliver · Aug 21, 2019

railwayman3 said:
I can remember, as a very young schoolboy buying roll films made by A R Bott & Sons Ltd, at Woolworths, under the brand "Standard" ( IIRC, there may have been "Standard Pan" and "Standard Ortho", I'm not absolutely sure ?? ). I wonder if these films were actually coated by them at Leamington Spa, or whether they were an early example of own-branding made by another manufacturer, in which case "Made in England" could suggest Ilford ? IDK ?

In more recent years Cewe at Warwick did the processing of the "developing included" 35mm E6 films for Boots, possibly also Jessops, Fuji, and others ? The packing of the slides from the last few "Boots Colourslide" films which I sent to them up, to about four years ago, suggested that they may have centralised all their European E6 work in Germany ?

CeWe in Warwick, the successor to Bott & Sons no longer seems to work with film so it's entirely possible. When CeWe took over in 2006 they promised 1.4 million pounds of investment in new equipment....I'm guessing that was all digital stuff to make photo books, souvenirs etc.

AR Bott was also known in later years as "Standard Photographic" so I bet they used the brand "Standard" too. I am not clear on whether they coated their own films or obtained them under license from someone else (eg Ilford). Whatever the stuff I got as "Superchrome Panchromatic" was...it performed well 47 years after expiry, likely 50 years after manufacture...so it was well made film.

JPD · Aug 21, 2019

Throwing out names:

Perutz Peruchrome
ORWO Chrom
Ilford Colour Film
Dufaycolor (A british film)
Gevachrome
Agfachrome

Agfachrome: http://lh4.ggpht.com/_2OcgA_dkrAY/TaOrQKQE8gI/AAAAAAAAQAs/f7KKXhKXTtI/AgfachromeCT18_thumb[2].jpg

Gevachrome: http://www.gammalstorp.se/Bilder-Fotopåsar/30_Grothens-Foto_Lund_02.jpg

AgX · Aug 22, 2019

JPD said:
Gevachrome
Gevachrome: http://www.gammalstorp.se/Bilder-Fotopåsar/30_Grothens-Foto_Lund_02.jpg

This is a B&W film.

Think about the early use of the suffixes -chrom rsp. -chrome.

Gevaert never marketed Gevachrome still film.
The later Gevachrome colour reversal films were all cine films.

JPD · Aug 22, 2019

AgX said:
This is a B&W film.

Think about the early use of the suffixes -chrom rsp. -chrome.

Gevaert never marketed Gevachrome still film.
The later Gevachrome colour reversal films were all cine films.

Thanks for the correction. Yes, the -chrom(e) suffix is confusing. At least the black and white Gevachrome was available as still film.

foc · Aug 22, 2019

Here is another one to confuse matters !!!

AgX · Aug 22, 2019

"-chrom" and "chrome" were suffixes indicating an widened spectral sensitivity. However this need not be panchromatic but may mean just orthochromatic.

Kodak started 1935 using the suffix "-chrome" indicating colour reversal film. But it took many years for all competitors to follow. As indicated for instance Gevaert never did so for still film.
(And their Gevachrome colour reversal films likely were even from times of Agfa-Gevaert, when for a period the brand Gevaert was still used exclusively for their industrial films.)

Searching for a Film Name

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency