My favourite darkroom paper - gone

Carse Graveyard from a few years back showing the characteristic warmth of Fomatone 133

Having left the darkroom behind - but hopefully not permanently - it might seem a bit cheeky of me to be complaining about the disappearance of a particular type of enlarging paper.

My favourite silver gelatin surface, which I first discovered about 44 years ago, was Agfa’s stipple. I then proceeded to forget about it for the following 30-odd years before rediscovering it in a few hundred sheets of Agfa Record Rapid which came in a bundle with an enlarger I bought on Gumtree in about 2010.

I still have some of the Record Rapid, which ceased production a couple of decades ago, and have been keeping it for something special. The problem is that it’s lost a couple of contrast grades so I’d need to make contrasty negatives for it. I have thought about making contrasty digital negatives from digital files and contact printing them onto the Agfa paper but that would be quite a lot of work.

Anyway, that’s enough waffling. The point of this post is to reveal that Czech company Foma have ceased production of their stipple surface which was a dead ringer for Agfa’s stipple surface. I used some of Foma’s Fomatone 133 MG fibre paper a couple of years ago and loved it. But, like the Agfa I have, it was difficult getting normal contrast from it as it seemed not to have aged well or had maybe just been out-of-date stock.

Had it had the expected, normal contrast range I would have bought plenty because it was by far my favourite paper of those which had made it thus far. When it was fresh and contrasty it was very. very good indeed. Sadly, I actually have some left in a box because it was just too flat or fogged to make good use of. I tried the UK importers, Morco, back in 2022 to see if they could help with fresh stocks but was referred to Foma’s head office just outside Prague. The company said they wouldn’t send stuff outside the EU, a somewhat dodgy business model I thought at the time.

I kept looking, couldn’t find the Fomatone 133 I wanted and eventually gave up. And now it’s gone for good. It looks like we stipple enthusiasts are just too niche a market. I learned about the stipple papers’ demise directly from Foma in response to my recent query.

The company's Bedřiška Sehnoutková said, “We are sorry, but the production of paper with surface 133 has been discontinued.

“Unfortunately, we cannot find a suitable base for this gradation of frosting.”

I got a follow up email from Žoha Jiří who said, “Unfortunately, there was very little interest in sales and production was not very profitable. The product that sells out gets the production capacity. I'm sorry. Thank you and have a nice day.”

So was it lack of demand or was the paper used for the 133 stock just no longer available? It’s not clear but it makes little difference either way. The bottom line is that, in the fibre based world, there seems to be only glossy and matte surfaces left. Plus maybe the odd “semi-matt” or “semi-gloss”?

As I was saying to my pal Phil Rogers the other day, we’re only left now with “run-of-the-mill” papers from the producers (Ilford's Art 300 is different but how much longer will it be around?). For sure, they’re very high quality but they don’t seem special in any way. They’re a bit BMW 3-Series when what you want is an old-tech Alfa Romeo 75.

Looks like I’ll just need to crack on with my high contrast neg project for the Agfa Record Rapid after all and hope that it hasn't deteriorated any further.