who going to be left

[sc balson]

all right who is going to be left ? I just order delta 100 4x5 from calumet and notice that oriental seagull vc fb was low so I asks about the 42" roll paper , they seed that they where lowing stokes of paper in the larger sizes . so who is going to be left . it looks like b&h is going to make the agfa 50" a special order. they did that to the oriental already . the only one they have in stock is the ilford vc fb but for how long ???

[Donald Qualls]

Lowering stock isn't the same as discontinuing, it's just a response by a retailer to reduced volume, driven by money -- they tie up capital and pay tax on inventory, or worse have wastage as paper expires in the warehouse, if they stock too much. Did you ask if they could order it in for you, and what the lead time might be?

Bottom line, the papers (like film) will be around as long as it's sufficiently profitable for the big companies to make them. When the big guys drop the ball, smaller makers, willing to operate on lower margins (or possibly able to do so because they don't have to please stockholders who wouldn't know RC glossy from pearl DW FB), will pick up some of the slack, providing smaller quantities at higher prices and with fewer variations.

If all else fails, at least large format photographers can fall back on albumen printing, salted paper, and other "alternative" processes that were common a hundred to a hundred fifty years ago, before silver gelatin was the "only" way to make a print. These contact printing processes, however, are much less practical for those making tiny negatives...