The end of Forte

I wonder if that bit of news has impacted jandcphoto, a US distributor of rebadged Forte products. I notice that JandC's web site that their reorganization will take longer anticipated.
 
At APUG and other places you can find a letter with the "Famous last words". Looks like they have not been able to find a serious investor. I hope the impact on other companies will not be to hard as Forte did work for Maco/Rollei. Fotoimpex, Moersch and Foto Brenner in Germany sold their papers.

But there are also good news. AGFA Papers (some of them) are coming back :D
 
Didn't Socke post about Forte a couple of days ago? Liquidating the assets was apparently irresistible as I recall.
 
traveller said:
But there are also good news. AGFA Papers (some of them) are coming back :D
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Could you let us know what the news is about new Agfa paper? Is it to be manufactured by the same people who took over the chemical products?

jeff
 
Superbus_ said:
According to my (non-official) information Forte stops it's production.
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Not good news. I always figured the boutique makers would stay around longer than the big names.
 
There was a huge thread over at APUG over the loss of Forte, it got utterly silly after a while. I am sorry to lose the film, from what I have read Kentmere is going to buy a fair number of the paper recipes. The reason why they bailed was the value of the land is as such, the owners would make a killing re-developing the land. Pity.

Anybody know what the financial health of Foma and Efke is like?


Bill
 
Absolutely sad.

It's the 80s with a vengeance. Works of art were melted for artillery during various periods in the past; that's a sure sign of the end of an era for a culture.
 
Originally Forte was a KODAK factory, its history began in 1922. Forte sold different film materials to more than 50 countries all over the world. So IMHO we can not call them as boutique makers altough recently they gave up the research.
The place where the factory is situtated (Vác) is a very nice place but I don't think it could be such a good business to build there houses and I do not believe that this is the reason. The reality is that digital simply kills film.
To tell you the truth I like forte films and I'm very sad, because after 2004 it seemed that they could survive.
I don't want to waste your time and and having a long debate like in other forums (APUG ) so I promise you that I will not post here more about this (except when something good happens - who knows?)...
 
I'm gonna be sick. I print on Forte paper and chose it because I liked it best after sampling virtually all the competition. No more fiber seni-matte neutral tone...
 
Uncle Bill said:
The reason why they bailed was the value of the land is as such, the owners would make a killing re-developing the land. Pity.
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The interesting thing is that Forte staff owns much of the company, so in fact the workers are the owners, partly.

Also Forte hasn't been a healthy company for ages. They were insolvent for a long time up to 2004, and even after that sometimes dealers had to wait for their orders for months. Even their goodbye letter says that the plant has been working at a loss, with oversized and outdated machinery in a shrinking market.

I will miss Polywarm and Polycold papers. The latter hasn't been made in ages, so I've already said goodbye to it. The former can be partly replaced with Kentona or with Fomatone. Not the same results, but nice ones.
 
Gman said:
Could you let us know what the news is about new Agfa paper? Is it to be manufactured by the same people who took over the chemical products?

jeff
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Sorry I didn't answer earlier.

No, it will not be A&O.

Agfa paper will be produced on a smaller machine from former Agfa-staff. The project was started by Mirko Boedeker (Fotoimpex), Wolfgang Moersch and Maco. So far only the MCP- and MCC-papers will be available. I think there is a threat at APUG too but I got the information at a german site (APHOG) and Wolfgang Moersch confirmed it. It should be available about June/July but that is a speculation on my part.
 
Awesome. I can wait... especially for MCC. I have also heard that original Agfa paper (manufactured late 2005) is still available in Germany from Maco.
 
peter_n said:
Awesome. I can wait... especially for MCC. I have also heard that original Agfa paper (manufactured late 2005) is still available in Germany from Maco.
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That is true, it is also available at Monochrom and some other places :)
 
traveller said:
It should be available about June/July but that is a speculation on my part.
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Thanks for the information. I will look forward to using Agfa in the future. In the meantime, Freestyle in L.A. still seems to have some MCC paper available.


jeff
 
Don't give up hope, maybe there is a small chance that Forte can be saved. Looks like there are negotiations including Moersch, Bergger, Foma and Fotohuis RoVO. More will be known in 2 weeks, but remember it's a real small chance.
 
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