Agfa-Ansco factory in Binghamton NY went online in the summer of 1929.
Toronto. Ansco and its predecessors and future companies tried hard as number two to be better than Kodak in films, papers, cameras etc. In the 1920s, known as Agfa-Ansco, the company built a massive factory which went into production the summer of 1929 in NY state.
A few months later, the worst stock crash in history hit America followed by a decade of the worst world-wide depression ever. Nevertheless, Agfa-Ansco products expanded rapidly world-wide. The ‘dirty thirties’ depression finally ended with world war 2. The British Empire (including Canada), America (reluctantly), Russia, etc. took on the aggressor, Germany, and its supporters, Italy, and Japan.
The Agfa part of the company was German so in 1941, Agfa-Ansco was seized by the American government as an alien business. Post war, its secrets and formulae became public domain. Ansco lived on a few decades into the 1980s under various names like GAF before disappearing forever as a photographic power.
In the late 1950s, I used Ansco colour slide products since they were faster (film), cheaper, and an amateur could develop the slides. Unfortunately larger colour coupler molecules were used limiting the colour dye choices resulting in the loss of colour, especially yellows, over a few decades. The result was the common purplish, faded image. On the other hand, the far more complex Kodachrome used much smaller colour couplers allowing a wider range of dyes and far better stability over time but was slow and contrasty. It had to be mailed back to a factory for processing.
Years later (late 1960s, early 1970s), I used Agfa-Gevaert products. As a gift in late 1970, my father bought me the 4th edition of Heinz Berger’s excellent opus, “Agfacolor” which I still have. The tipped in colour enlargement of a photo by the author on Agfacolor paper is slowly fading now, but it’s still reasonably clear and colourful.
My thanks to my good friend, George Dunbar, for sharing this advertisement. The ad/article appeared in the July, 1929 issue of The INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER magazine. Seeing it brought back memories of my venture into the world of Ansco and Agfa.
