[pure-silver] Re: Kodachrome
- From: Helge Nareid <hn.groups@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:57:27 +0000
Richard Knoppow wrote:
[... big snip ...]
Agfa had solved the problem of sequestering the dyes that plagued
Kodak at about the same time as Kodak released Kodachrome. Agfa called
its film Agfacolor and both negative and transparency films were made
but not sold outside of Germany.
Just a minor point. I don't have anything but anecdotal evidence, but I
used to know some amateur photographers in my native Norway who were
active photographers before and during the German occupation of Norway
(1940 to 1945). The availability of photographic materials for civilian
use was obviously severely limited, whether colour or black-and-white.
I recall at least one of them telling me of using Agfacolor slide film
before and even during the war. During the war, colour film processing
was not available for Norwegian civilians, so he told us of how he had
the film smuggled to Sweden (which was neutral during the war) for
processing.
Smuggling was not particularly difficult if you had the right contacts.
There was (and still is) a railway connection from my home town of
Trondheim to Sweden, and the border station where train-crew and
locomotives were changed over was Storlien, a few miles inside the
Swedish border and thus outside the direct control of the German
occupation forces.
The father of a friend of mine was a conductor serving on those trains,
and he told me how the local railway works had fashioned a number of
hiding places on the locomotives for small items of contraband,
including a metal container located inside the firebox. As I recall he
said that location was mainly used for illegal underground newspapers
printed in Sweden for distribution in occupied Norway. It obviously
would not be suitable for firearms or explosives (!).
These hiding places were of course mainly used for information and
materials to or from the resistance movement, but on at least one
occasion it appears to have been used for sending slide film for
processing (my acquaintance never told me whether the photographs were
for resistance purposes or not).
Sorry for the lengthy digression, but it appears that Agfacolor films
were sold in at least some markets outside Germany before the war. By
the way, Agfacolor was the trademark used for both slide and negative
films made by Agfa until (at least) the 70's. The first slide film I
ever used was Agfacolor CT18 (which I believe was sold as Agfachrome
CT18 in the US).
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