Will Harman prices increase next month ?

Thank you for setting the record straight Simon. I hate it when rumours take a life of their own and drive everyone mental.

Hopefully it will NOT be resurrected for April 1st...

I noted the already high prices of Ilford papers ( In comparison with some of their competitors )whilst looking about the Freestyle site. Note that, in the USA at least, there are a reasonable number of other choices of enlarging papers at prices that are considerably less then the prices charged by Ilford. Ilford does support the LF community, and their products are certainly admirable. As far as film is concerned, as compared to Kodak, the Ilford prices are-presently- certainly cheaper ( see HP5 vs. TMax 400 in 8x10 ). Nevertheless, one must do what is best for one's own situation with reference to prices paid for products used. Thus, if the Ilford paper prices reach a point that is, to many, unreasonably high, then then demand will fall. It is then up to Ilford to do what they must do as well. Nothing to do but let the situation play out. Just be grateful that there are other choices when it comes to enlarging papers. Ilford might be the "best" for some, but judging from comments here over the past year, the other choices are getting better, and better.


Ed

Steve Roberts said:

"Silver by the Ton" was the title of Ilford's centenary book (and well worth tracking down) but Simon's comment prompts me to wonder whether the next publication will have to be "Silver by the Tonne" to satisfy the metrificators!

Steve

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Well, despite the fact that I am very much antri-metric, the price of silver is a mess no matter how you look at it: It's sold, in *US Dollars* per *TROY* ounce (192/175 oz. avdp. or ~31.1g). So there's some ugly math whether you sell it by the 2,000 lb avdp., 2,240 lb. avdp., or 1,000kg ton. No such thing as a troy ton after-all.

In practical, real world matters, everyone is buying it up as a hedge from the stock markets, retirement funds, and inflation. It is a "safe" investment in times like these. Then, for the poor Brits dealing in the £-Sterling, which is loosing value to both the Euro and U.S. dollar relatively, it's like a triple whammy.

Unfortunately, a lot of this silver price spike is due to investment not to a dwindling supply of any sort or any real increase in demand for manufacturing purposes.

tim_walls said:

The most common measure of significant weights among one's generation is actually the 'metric shedload'. As in, "I'm helping Tim move his darkroom this weekend - he has a metric shedload of rubbish in there."

Actually, common usage is a different four-letter-word-starting-with-sh-load, but this is of course a family forum... "Silver by the Metric Sh**load" would certainly lend a more contemporary feel to the tome, though.

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I often refer to large amounts of something as a whole shipload, it's amazing how many people hear that differently then what I actually said. Someone once took great offence to my use of a profanity, until I spelled it out for them......

FilmIs4Ever said:

Well, despite the fact that I am very much antri-metric, the price of silver is a mess no matter how you look at it: It's sold, in *US Dollars* per *TROY* ounce (192/175 oz. avdp. or ~31.1g). So there's some ugly math whether you sell it by the 2,000 lb avdp., 2,240 lb. avdp., or 1,000kg ton. No such thing as a troy ton after-all.

In practical, real world matters, everyone is buying it up as a hedge from the stock markets, retirement funds, and inflation. It is a "safe" investment in times like these. Then, for the poor Brits dealing in the £-Sterling, which is loosing value to both the Euro and U.S. dollar relatively, it's like a triple whammy.

Unfortunately, a lot of this silver price spike is due to investment not to a dwindling supply of any sort or any real increase in demand for manufacturing purposes.

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You need to decide your units, then convert everything to the same unit, for example there are 32 150.746 569 troy ounces in a tonne. So at $20/troy oz and $1.40 per £ it means a tonne of silver would cost around £457,948.69 That's a significant chunk of change in anyones books. Considering their supplier is in Europe, tonnes would be most likely. What makes things even more confusing though is that there are two prices for any commodity, the spot price is what you see in stock reports, there are also contract prices. If I go to Joe's silver smelting and want to buy 52 tonnes of silver, with 1 tonne to be delivered each week for the next year, they will give me a contract price per tonne, this often bears little resemblance to the spot price, and is not connected to the spot price. Say they quote me €375,000 per tonne, then even if the spot price goes to $1,000,000,000 per troy ounce, I am paying €375,000 per tonne, for the life of the contract. The problem for the British is that Last September £1 was €1.22 now it's €1.11 doesn't seem to be a huge difference but it's a considerable amount when your talking hundred of thousands of Pounds. The difference between the Pound and Euro hasn't changed as much as against the $US....

Dear filmis4ever,

You are quite correct, there is plenty of silver, the biggest purchasers used to be the photo industry and demand has obviously declined massively, but its a commodity ( which often shadows Gold ) people do move to these commodities in times of trouble. For sure its not 'Bunker Hunt' but its certainly double what we would expect to pay normally.

We obviously get silver as silver nitrate so you cannot really hedge it, and you are quite correct its traded in USD $ only.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

Hey Simon.

Actually surprised to see that you use Silver Nitrate. I would've thought you'd make it yourselves and buy elemental silver bars instead. That must be one big jug of NO3 you get!

I wonder what today's imaging industry's consumption is as compared to what it was at it's peak in the late '90s early 2000s.

A lot of companies have gone belly-up, unfortunately, since then, but I'd imagine that the consumption of silver for movie prints is still HUGE, something like 15 billion feet (4.6 billion meters) per year still.

Hopefully, in the long run, decreased demand will allow you to see prices, adjusted for inflation & currency fluctuation, that are actually far lower than they were when the price reached it's low point of, what $4U.S./tr. oz. in '00 or '01. You'd think that silly speculation would have far less of an impact than actual demand and scarcity, but, counter-intuitively, the opposite seems to be true.

Eventually, though, another scary thing is the scarcity of silver. I assume it's nowhere near as scarce as gold, due to its far lower price, but, as a precious metal that is being consumed to the tune of billions of troy ounces/year it will have to run out at some point in the future.

One of my big gripes about B&W is that, since the silver makes up the image, there is no way to recover all of the silver unless you were to tone the silver out.

Another thing that drives me nuts is the immense amount of silver that is casually tossed in the trash can, in the darkrooms I've been in, here in the States. Of all the reject prints that go in the trash can, how much of this precious metal are we casually sending to the landfill? If not for ethical reasons, I hope to see people eventually work out an economical means of silver reclamation from waste prints for the financial incentive and long-term scarcity of silver.

Due to movie print "recycling" programs, virtually all of the silver and base Estar ends up right back where it started. Surprising to see something to the same effect hasn't been implemented in high school, college, and commercial darkrooms to recycle base paper, plastic, and silver for reuse, which would be a win-win for everyone except maybe silver miners short-term profits!

Also, as an aside to tons versus tonnes, I recommend sticking with the long ton. It's 2 2/3 st. more impressive than it's metric counterpart. We in the U.S. (& occasionally Canada, S. Africa) have far more incentive to get rid of our wimpy 2,000 lb. equivalent ;-)

We recycle and silver recover everything ( obviously ) paper waste / film waste / process chemicals, when we have the tours people seem to enjoy the tube the sucks up the punched out film from the perforated sprocket holes on the 35mm....yes that goes for recycling as well....

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology limited :

Simon R Galley said:

We recycle and silver recover everything ( obviously ) paper waste / film waste / process chemicals, when we have the tours people seem to enjoy the tube the sucks up the punched out film from the perforated sprocket holes on the 35mm....yes that goes for recycling as well....

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology limited :

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Oh, I didn't know that Ilford did tours on the factory. Someday I should go and do a visit. Mobberley is very close to Manchester Airport (Google Maps is your friend); Getting a taxi and go there shouldn't be very hard. I'll research a bit more about.
Seen a pair of photos of finished 120 FP4 and 35mm Delta rolls. How nice to see so much of them.

Simon R Galley said:

We have introduced a variable by product wholesaler price increase in the UK, which will see prices increase, probably in the next couple of months, but no where near 30.00%.

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I accept the inevatibility of increased prices in the UK but is anyone prepared to actually say what these will be for paper, film and chemistry. Would be useful in regards to quotes I have to make soon.
Ta.

I'd be unhappy if "nowhere near 30%" turned out to be greater than 10%.

I'd say 5-10% is a safe assumption if the increase were only 3% last year. Maybe it'll just be another 3%.

Remember that some retailers sell on fear. I'm assuming that this is where the 30% rumor originated.

FilmIs4Ever said:

I'd be unhappy if "nowhere near 30%" turned out to be greater than 10%.

I'd say 5-10% is a safe assumption if the increase were only 3% last year. Maybe it'll just be another 3%.

Remember that some retailers sell on fear. I'm assuming that this is where the 30% rumor originated.

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Well don't forget £1 is equal to US$1.40 a year ago that same £1 was worth US$1.99 a difference of just under 30%, which is probably where the 30% number comes from.

wogster said:

Well don't forget £1 is equal to US$1.40 a year ago that same £1 was worth US$1.99 a difference of just under 30%, which is probably where the 30% number comes from.

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Huh? If anything that'd amount to a 30% DECREASE in U.S. prices. Regardless of the price of silver spiking up, due to the strengthening U.S. dollar and speculator flight into the silver market that hardly constitutes cause for Ilford's prices to spike. After all, silver is just one component, no matter how much they buy.

If anything, as far as the U.S. is concerned, U.S. prices should *go down*.

Mike Crawford said:

I accept the inevatibility of increased prices in the UK but is anyone prepared to actually say what these will be for paper, film and chemistry. Would be useful in regards to quotes I have to make soon.
Ta.

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but that's not very fair to increase the wholesale prices for the UK retailers and keep the same prices for the distributors outside UK

damien said:

but that's not very fair to increase the wholesale prices for the UK retailers and keep the same prices for the distributors outside UK

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I'm speculating here, but it occurs that there might be a price in Sterling, a price in Dollars, and a price in Euros? Given Sterling has tanked against the other two currencies, raising prices in Sterling without raising them Dollars or Euros seems eminently 'fair'.

Harman prices increased in March 2008 of 6%, about 10% in October and now 15/20%, that's more than the currency variations ; Ilford films will be cheaper in Germany than in UK !

damien said:

Harman prices increased in March 2008 of 6%, about 10% in October and now 15/20%, that's more than the currency variations ; Ilford films will be cheaper in Germany than in UK !

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Oh, hold on, you apparently have the confirmed price increases - where did you find the reference?

Edit: Incidentally - Sterling has dropped against the Euro by approximately 20% in the last year.

Dear All,

We are a worldwide exporter, we invoice in a range of currencies :

Let me repeat : No increases anywhere except the UK are planned :

The prices in the UK have increased, in 08 and in 09, after the latest adjustments the prices in the UK retail market we will now expect to be broadly the same as they are in the European retail market, although we have no power whatsoever to set the retail price, that is entirely down to the resellers who sell our product.

Speculation on a price reduction for the USA market : When the £ strengthened to over $ 2.00 we did not put up the prices to the USA market to recover our exchange rate currency loss....which we suffered in 06 / 07 and 08 : We have no plans to increase prices in the USA or to reduce them.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology limited :

FilmIs4Ever said:

Huh? If anything that'd amount to a 30% DECREASE in U.S. prices. Regardless of the price of silver spiking up, due to the strengthening U.S. dollar and speculator flight into the silver market that hardly constitutes cause for Ilford's prices to spike. After all, silver is just one component, no matter how much they buy.

If anything, as far as the U.S. is concerned, U.S. prices should *go down*.

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They were not talking about US prices, they were talking about UK prices. Let me give you a quick lesson in doing international business.

Say I own a company that distributes widgets in Canada for the Royal Widget Manufacturing Company of England (RWM). RWM sells to me in US$, because the US$ is one of the trade currencies. I buy Widgets from all over the world, I arrange through my Canadian bank to have a US$ account, I can exchange between CA$ and US$ simply by going on my computer and moving money from one account to the other, the bank takes care of the actual exchange. Back last year when the CA$ hit par, I didn't drop my prices as much as I could have and made a little extra money which I am now using to keep from having to massively raise prices now that the Beaver Buck is worth 78¢ again....:rolleyes:

So I write RWM a cheque on my US$ account, RWM deposits my US$ cheque into their US$ account, they then buy raw materials in US$ which they pay for by writing a cheque on their US$ account. Once a month they balance between their US$ account and £ accounts. UK banks are probably as good at doing this as Canadian banks, and will do so by simply moving money from one account to another.

Now here is where it gets interesting, if RWM sells in the UK, then they also need to buy the raw materials for those customers in US$, if they have a lot of international sales in US$ then they may be okay at this, effectively their international customers to some degree subsidize their domestic customers, if most of their sales are domestic, then they need to buy US$ with dwindling pounds sterling, and their domestic prices need to go up.

Guys,I was being sarcastic. Sorry that not one, but two commonwealth vountries took me seriously.

Every one is getting a little of them selves. We're British (English) we should be used to it by now.

It's not complicated really - here's a simple way to think about it:

Revenues - in sterling, because it's a UK company - need to increase to cover increased costs.
Revenues from US sales increase naturally because the dollar is worth more so you get more pounds when you cash in.
Revenues from Euro sales increase naturally because the euro is worth more so you get more pounds when you cash in.
Revenues from sterling only increase by putting up the sterling price.


Or, to put it another way, effectively prices increase everywhere - the prices in Euro/US land increase by not passing on the saving of their appreciating currency.

FilmIs4Ever said:

Guys,I was being sarcastic. Sorry that not one, but two commonwealth vountries took me seriously.

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Maybe it's because we are used to Americans saying such things, while being serious. :rolleyes: