Agfa photo paper

[lohengrin]

A collector send me recently a message asking about spotting reproductions and distinguishing them from PERIOD originals... As I always say there is not a "rule of thumb" to determine when the photo has been made. He kept arguing with me that if the photos have underlined or plain AGFA BROVIRA or LUPEX logos they are originals. No matter what I said, he insisted that photos developed after WWII on the AGFA paper have a line above the logo and everything else is WWII original. I could not persuade him otherwise.

As an example, I would like to post here several scans of photos taken in 1949 and developed a year later - in 1950. Thus these photographs are NOT WWII originals, yet developed on WWII and early post-WWII paper...

Anyway, I just wanted to show those interested (or new) to this hobby that there is much more to it than AGFA logos... There were massive amounts of photos developed on such paper until mid 1950s...

Best, Mark

[lohengrin]

Scans 3 and 4

[lohengrin]

Scan 5 and 6

[johnny_ola2000]

Thanks!

Good point you are making...

I suppose a wartime photo printed on wartime paper would still rank higher than the same photo on post 1945 paper, even if they both had been printed after the war :-)

[Andrew Harris]

Could you post the obverses, please?

[12thPanzer]

Mark, you are absolutely correct that this can and did happen.

I think it is a good thing for collectors to know about Post-war markings, but the whole "line above the Agfa marking" is still a good thing to know about too.

Luckily, the majority of photos we see on wartime paper are normally printed during the wartime period ......so this little bit of knowledge is certainly helpful in most cases.

But as you have shown, there will be circumstances where people ended up printing there negatives years later, when wartime paper supply was still being used.

Sites such as this are still helpful with paper manufaturer markings IMO:
http://www.kriegsberichter.de/Data/fake04e.htm

[Hohenlohe]

I have original post war first print photos on old Agfa paper from the 1960s - 70s. You NEVER can say, when a photos was made, because MOST photo albums were put together AFTER the war!

[Michael73]

A collector send me recently a message asking about spotting reproductions and distinguishing them from PERIOD originals... As I always say there is not a "rule of thumb" to determine when the photo has been made. He kept arguing with me that if the photos have underlined or plain AGFA BROVIRA or LUPEX logos they are originals. No matter what I said, he insisted that photos developed after WWII on the AGFA paper have a line above the logo and everything else is WWII original. I could not persuade him otherwise.

As an example, I would like to post here several scans of photos taken in 1949 and developed a year later - in 1950. Thus these photographs are NOT WWII originals, yet developed on WWII and early post-WWII paper...

Anyway, I just wanted to show those interested (or new) to this hobby that there is much more to it than AGFA logos... There were massive amounts of photos developed on such paper until mid 1950s...

Best, Mark

Mark, most collectors today will consider theese scans as 100% originals...

[lohengrin]

Mark, most collectors today will consider theese scans as 100% originals...

Thanks Mike!!

The thing is that these are 100% originals!! Just not WWII period originals!!


Many collectors do not realize that many WWII photos were actually made after 1945. Not perhaps in 1945-1947 when there was still a lot anger and fear, but few years later when things calmed down a bit and families would find few negatives showing their family members that perished during the war. As Hohenlohe pointed out (thanks by the way), most albums were put together in 1950s and 1960s with mix of WWII and post-1945-made originals...

M.

[Edgar Alcidi]

Thanks Mike!!

The thing is that these are 100% originals!! Just not WWII period originals!!




M.

right Mark...the splits on this issue is not very thin. Sometimes collectors should accept it as it is: In certain cases you CANNOT be 100% sure....

[lohengrin]

right Mark...the splits on this issue is not very thin. Sometimes collectors should accept it as it is: In certain cases you CANNOT be 100% sure....

I agree with that!

[12thPanzer]

I have original post war first print photos on old Agfa paper from the 1960s - 70s. You NEVER can say, when a photos was made, because MOST photo albums were put together AFTER the war!

Agreed that We would Never be able to tell when Marks photos were printed if he hadnt told us!

The only point I was trying to make in my frst post was that certain types of Agfa paper (& agfa markings) were not produced until various post war dates,......so it is okay to assume that photos with the "line above the agfa mark"/etc were indeed PRINTED post-war.
Of course it doesnt make a photo "bad" or not "original", because like Mark said, people had the original wartime negatives printed for albums, which is legit IMO!
So it can still be useful to know about Agfa paper markings.....but what the colllector was saying to Mark was a bit excessive!