A couple of notes: I believe Geveluxe was available in several surfaces, the Velours being only one of them. I have relatively little information on older Gevaert stuff although I used a lot of Gevaert film and paper, especially Artex, in highschool. AGFA used a non-standard numbering system for their paper grades until about 1980, I don't remember the date. The numbers were one number _higher_ than Kodak numbers for the same contrast, that is, normal was AGFA No.3 and Kodak No.2. So AGFA Grade-6 was about the same as Kodak Grade-5, not an additional super contrasty grade. AGFA and Ansco: Ansco was the chief competitor of Kodak and the oldest photographic materials company in the United States. It was a merger of several companies, notably E & H.T. Anthony and the Scoville manufacturing company. That became Anthony & Scoville for a short time and then Ansco, the renaming taking place sometime around 1910. In 1926 Ansco was bought by the German company AGFA, which was then a branch of the giant German chemical cartel I.G.Farben. The merged company gradually suppressed the Ansco name in favor of Agfa. Agfa/Ansco made film and paper in the USA based on the emulsions developed in Germany. Many of the products shared the same name as the German products but some didn't. In about 1917, when the US entered the WW-2 all German-owned properties in the US were seized by the government so from 1941 AGFA-Ansco was run by the government. The Agfa name persisted until about 1944 when it was dropped completely and the name Ansco re-appeared. However, Ansco continued to use many Agfa formulas and techniques for their emulsions. Ansco was returned to private hands on a date I am not sure of but the company was fairly quickly mis-managed to death. AGFA re-emerged on the US market directly selling German-made products. The curious thing is that I remember well how Ansco paper smelled and AGFA papers had exactly the same odor. Neither Ansco or AGFA seems to have had the control over coating and perhaps paper making that Kodak had so the surfaces were never as uniform, at least not for the older fiber based papers. In terms of appearance I think both AGFA and Ansco made some of the most attractive papers ever on the market. Another BTW, while Edward Weston is somehow associated with Azo he noted in his day books that he actually used quite a lot of Defender and Agfa papers.
-- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles, CA, USAdickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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