Developing Verichrome Pan exposed in 1960

[minoly]

It's a long story that I won't go into here, but a few days ago I developed a rolll of Verichrome Pan 620 film that had been exposed 57 years ago. It came from a friend who found it in a camera that had belonged to his mother. It didn't seem like there were great expectations for it so I said that I would develop it. Wrestling with tightly curled old film was new to me, but I sat down with it and once I got it started on the reel and coaxed a little the whole roll was on the reel and I could develop it in the usual way. Turns out there were only 4 frames exposed and some light struck spots; still my friend was able to date it back immediately to Scout camp in 1960. What I learned from it was that I should do the same thing with "younger" old rolls of film that I still have.

Bill Delehanty

[Julio1fer]

Not bad at all. Usually I would rather use stock D-76 for old film, but your 1:1 worked fine at least as seen in this scan.

Verichrome was a very forgiving film and now we know it also lasts a lot!

I hope your friend was suitably thrilled!

[PFMcFarland]

Looks just like the camp I went to. I've got a roll of some kind of Pan film I got out of my Dad's Spartus Flex. I'll have to try it sometime.

PF

[GrahamS]

Verichrome Pan was my favorite film of all time. It had a dual emulsion coating to give it exceptional latitude. I visited the coating plant once and suggested a 220 version but it never happened. I used it for weddings, processed in D76 stock solution because of it's terrific highlight detail without blocking out the shadows. My employer at the time (Kodak SA) were less than enthusiastic about my use of this film for "professional" purposes and kept appealing to me to switch to Plus-X Pan. I promised not to tell my customers.

[minoly]

Thanks for commenting, Julio, Phil, and Graham; good to hear that Verichrome is still recognized. I should have mentioned in the original post that the film was exposed in a Brownie Hawkeye; I'll add that here. I got used to VP in my Rollei 4x4 (I no longer have it); after they dropped Tri-X in 127 size, VP was the only other b&w 127 film I was aware of. At that time, too, I used Montgomery Wards in St. Paul for photo equipment; they kept stock of 127 in Ektachrome, Kodacolor, and VP-- if I was aware of any import films, I guess I didn't think of trying to find them. Kodak stopped making Ektachrome in 127 in the '80s and eventually cut out VP, too (I still have 4 or 5 rolls and they expired in 1986). So I sold the 4x4 and bought a 6x6 Rollei and used 120 VP in it as long as I could get it; I once asked Don, the proprietor of the store where I bought it who else bought VP and he said, "You, another amateur, and a HS photo teacher". I was just going by hunch and preference, so I am happy to hear, Graham, that you chose it over Plux-X. Besides the 127 rolls, I still have some VP in 620 and 116; I'd better try to use it this summer.

[Julio1fer]

I do not know how many rolls of 120 and 620 VP I developed back in the early 60s, helping my late father back when he run a small side business of developing and contact printing. Must have been a few thousand rolls, all from box cameras, all in D-76 1:1 IIRC. The latitude of the film was fantastic, it was a film you could take to a war if needed.

My own first roll was a 620 VP, shot in a Brownie Hawkeye when I was 8 or 9 years old. I did not graduate to shoot MF again until much, much later, when VP was already extinct. So I never got to try VP in a good-quality camera, but I am not surprised by Grahams' information.