Understanding Ilfocolor

[perkeleellinen]

Why did Ilford mount the Ilfocolor negatives in cardboard mounts? What's the logic?

 

[koraks]

Cost and convenience, perhaps?

Coincidentally, I was going through a box of slides my dad made in the period 1964-1974. A variety of color and (home-made) B&W, mounted in a variety of 'modern' two-part plastic mounts, but also some cardboard mounts much like the ones you show. Back then, it was quite common to use cardboard for slide mounts. And it wasn't unheard of to mount negatives, either - again, in this same box of ours there were several cardboard-mounted negatives. I guess this was deemed a convenient way of storing and accessing them. The mounts also made it possible to easily put a single negative into an enlarger without having to touch the film.

 

[Ian Grant]

Probably so you could send individual negatives back to Ilford for reprints/enlargements. Like Kodachrome, the Ilfocor & Ilfochrome processes were proprietary, and the UK Monopolies Commission said Ilford had to allow 3rd party processing. Film sales were not high enough for this to be viable, Ilford needed the revenue from the film sales & processing.

Ian

 

[perkeleellinen]

Thanks, Both.

The ads for this film from the early '60s show that the film was returned with a strip (36exp? 24? 20?) of contact prints. Very tiny, with the encouragement to send the negs back for enlargements. The mounts I have are numbered. I suppose it must have made business sense, I wonder if the mounting line was also used for Ilfochrome.

Having them mounted like this makes it hard to print at home without a rare mounted slide neg carrier. But maybe home colour wasn't much of a thing in '62.

 

[koraks]

But maybe home colour wasn't much of a thing in '62.

No, it wasn't. Home color printing only became somewhat more prominent through the 1970s, and particularly from 1980 onward due to the drop in cost of print materials and the much shorter processing times of RA4 materials (mid/late 1980s).

 

[Ian Grant]

But maybe home colour wasn't much of a thing in '62.

Here in the UK home colour printing had started growing by the early 1960s. Dr Kurt (Curt) Jacobson (of Developing fame) had introduced his Pakolor process around 1952, initially film, paper, & chemistry, amateur kits were available from around 1955. The process, was later bought by the Pavelle Corporation of New York, and marketed as a 3 bath amateur process here in the UK as Paterson Pavelle from December 1962. The Paterson kit included both paper and chemistry, and filters, I made my first colour prints with a kit around 1969. There hade been improvements over the years.

British Synthacol Ltd of Stockport, also sold a colour printing kit in 1953/4 but unlike Pakolor/Pavell it was not around long. There were others, like Raycolor a year or so later with a Universal process, and many photographers mixed their own chemistry from formulae publish in the BJP for all leading brands of film & paper. Jack Coote's book "Colour Prints" revised 1963 edition indicates Agfacolor, Ektacolor & Kodacolor,, and Pakolor, could all be printed by home users, so processing kits and paper were available. Somewhere, I have a mid 60's Kodak pamphlet on home colour printing.

Again, here in the UK, Rayco and Melico were making colour analysers by the mid 1960s, suitable for amateurs and professional use.

Jacobson's company in Church Road, Epsom, also made a range of commercial colour processing equipment on a nearby industrial estate, and this became Durst UK in the 1970s. Ron Mowrey (PE) stated that Kodak held Kurt Jacobson in very high regard, as a leader in his field.

Ian