Kentmere Bromide - Availability of Grades

[Matthew Gorringe]

I noticed today that Silverprint in the UK no longer have Kentmere Bromide available in grade 3.

Simon, can you please tell us if this is a temporary state of affairs or will it now only be manufactured in grade 2? I'd hate to see a reduction in the availability of Kentmere's graded paper so soon after the aquisition by Ilford Harmon.

Regards,
Matt.

[Bob F.]

Bromide has only been available in the UK in grade 2 for a least a couple of years (Silverprint used to have some G3 left over for a while).

Kentmere only supplied their US distributor with other grades as far as I ever saw.

Bob.

[Ian Grant]

Further to Bob's comments I spoke to Kentmere about this 3 or 4 years ago and they said sales in the UK didn't justify manufacture of a full range of grades. Back in the mid to late 80's Kentmere cut the Kentona range back to a single grade as well. I was told that if a customer/distributor was prepared to buy a complete producton/coating run they could make other grades.

Ian

[Rob Skeoch]

I've been able to get Bromide in 2,3,4 here in Canada... it's become my first choice paper with the cool-head enlarger. Gallerie has become a special order item and is costly so I switched last year.
-Rob

[Ian Grant]

That makes sense, and corresponds exactly with what I was told. I asked Kentmere because the other 2 grades were on Kentmere US site. It turned out that website has nothing to do with Kentmere UK and in fact belongs to their distributor in the US Freestyle. They were prepared to order sufficient quantities to warrant production of the additional grades.

Ian

[Matthew Gorringe]

Very interesting, the Kentmere Grade 3 is very contrasty anyway and probably only an occasional paper for me; it is important to have it available for difficult negatives or special processes.