40 Year Old Agfa Bovria Paper, is it still worth printin on it?

[Torontoamateur]

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In University , 40 years ago, I printed on Agfa Brovira paper. It was fabulous. Now that I have my traditional wet darkroom fully functional a friend had offer his old stuff which includes some 40 year old graded Agfa Brovira. Grade 3. Is this worth printing in today. He offers two 100 sheet boxes ( freebee) .I ask because he is a 3 hour drive away.He kept it in his unfinished basement. He also has some Ilford MG RC.

Is this worth the effort of trying?

 

Thank You.

[gbealnz]

The 3 hour drive (plus the return) notwithstanding, what do you have to lose, try it.

[stray cat]

Absolutely beautiful paper at its best. I think you'd really regret not giving it a go. Maybe take along the Leica gear on the trip to pick it up and stop along the way to make photographs to print...

[Ko.Fe.]

I have it. And Ilfobrom. Better than new stock RC. Old RC is gamble.

Old FB is still printable in regular developer and I also did it in Arista Premium Lith AB, from Argentix.ca.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Ko.Fe.

[Pyrogallol]

It may be ok, or not. I received several packets of old paper from a friend recently, about four different manufacturers. Some were ok with good whites, some so flat and fogged grey that they were not usable, after the first test. The Agfa might be ok.

The postage on two boxes of paper would probably be less than the cost of fuel driving for six hours to get them.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Pyrogallol

[otto.f]

Well, you will have at least the Ilford MG RC for that drive. My experience, totally random, is that my Brovira seemed to last less longer than Record Rapid. Portriga also had a shorter lifetime.

Edited January 1, 2021 by otto.f

[Pyrogallol]

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Just looked through some of the prints I made on my friend’s outdated paper;

Agfa Record Rapid was ok, a different colour to start with than other papers. The cleanest whites were on some Chen Fu and Forte papers.

[onelensman]

About four years ago I finished using up about sixty sheets of 12x16 Agfa Brovira fibre papers in three different contrast grades I had hoarded since the early 80's. The resulting prints were great with very little loss of contrast, deep blacks (for which this paper was noted for) and no evidence of fog in the whites. The paper base had the slightest trace of yellowing. The paper packs were stored with no special regard to temperature, winter or summer. These double weight papers felt slightly heavier than the Kodak and Ilford papers and after drying and flattening show no signs of curling

You might also get surprisingly good results. If you experience a discernible fog level, try adding anti-foggant to your developer solution, eg Benzotriazole or Potassium Bromide

[Einst_Stein]

sure.

[250swb]

Agfa made some of the highest silver content papers available. Brovira was the cool tone paper, Record Rapid was it's equivalent as a warm tone paper, and Portriga was a very warm tone paper. In their day the warm tone papers were much favoured by landscape and portrait photographers with Record Rapid being the most popular, typically Brovira was suited to architecture and industrial subjects although there were no rules.

[Pyrogallol]

I used to love AGFA grade 6 paper.