[Oren Grad]

I have recently come upon two boxes of 16x20 Ilford MG, but not VI, which I assume is a new version. It is Fiber base, has been frozen, and will not be used by the owner, who bought it some time ago, and went to the pixels. The are unopened. How is plain Multigrade FB different from Multigrade VI FB?

The original MG FB had a shorter toe, with correspondingly steeper highlight contrast, than the current MGIV FB. DMax straight from the tray - that is, before toning - was also greater. IMO it's a better match than MG IV to a shouldered film like TX, or TMX developed in D-76. I sorely miss the original MGFB - I'd go back to it in an instant if they brought it back.

Caveat: Ilford papers generally keep well, but MGFB has been out of production for more than ten years now, and there's no guarantee that the sensitometric characteristics of the paper won't have changed in all this time, even given the cold storage.