Martin Reed
Advertiser
Well this is the entire & utter history of Seagull in the UK as I recall it. Oriental was the manufacturer, Seagull the brand-name, they did make several other papers but none of the same stature. We started Silverprint off with Oriental Seagull, which hadn't been previously been brought into the UK, although it had been made since 1967. It went well, boosted by the great reputation it was acquiring in the States, and Mike Spry at Downtown Darkroom made the discovery that it worked well in lith - Oriental themselves were unaware of this.
When Oriental went into administration (in 1997?) there was a period where it was unavailable. When the new Oriental company was established we found all previous agency agreements had been torn up, and the company wanted large distributors that covered plenty of ground to handle it - this ended up in the UK as Calumet. There ensued a period where they made a total hash of it, but Silverprint was at least able to purchase it as a dealer. Mr Cad did so also, so distribution was working reasonably well when the new company called it a day (about 2000?). Mr Cad bought a lot of old stock from Calumet, and was the last source before it dried up.
The manufacturing plant was closed, but a bought-in paper is still being sold as 'Oriental Seagull'. This does not lith, is not the same specification as the original, and can be sourced in the original manufacturers packaging much more cheaply. Which is why, at Silverprint, we stopped dealing with it.
Even if the manufacturers had not had financial problems, though, Seagull might have had to cease. It's performance was certainly linked to a high cadmium usage in the emulsion, so H&S would probably have got it in the end. It keeps very well, though, Mike Spry is still using it for Anton Corbijns lith prints!