New Ilford Products

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Ian-Barber

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Says Japan on the bottles, is this a different Ilford company ?

Search: 3 results found for "Ilford Platinachrome"

Offering a great service to Professionals, Students & Hobbyists. Trusted supplier to Schools, Colleges, Universities and Public Sector. Supplier of Traditional Analogue, Digital & Alternative Process Photographic Products. Also Inkjet Media and Art/Design supplies.
silverprint.co.uk silverprint.co.uk
 
Definitely unrelated to Ilford/Harman.

I could buy 5x4.japan.co.uk. It's disgusting that what was once the premiere UK supplier of films, papers, and other materials has stooped so low,

Ian
 
Ian Grant said:
Definitely unrelated to Ilford/Harman.

I could buy 5x4.japan.co.uk. It's disgusting that what was once the premiere UK supplier of films, papers, and other materials has stooped so low,

Ian
Click to expand...

I am quite surprised there isnt any breeching of intelletual property rights
 
A Japanese Inkjet paper company bought the brand name from the administrators of the Swiss arm of Ilford.

The history is that the Swiss company Tellko made a colour dye bleach reversal paper as well as other products, they were bough by Ciba Geigy, that paper became Cibachrome, then Ciba bought Ilford from International paper. At that point the Swiss company also changed their name to Ilford, much later Ciba sold the company and the Cibachrome paper became Ilfochrome.

Then Ilford in the UK went into voluntary administration, that broke their financial links with Ilford in Marly, Switzerland.

Ian
 
So I guess that Ilford as we call it it today should really be referred to as Ilford Harman
 
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While they claim their products are in no way related to Harman's Ilford products, the fact that they use the same Typefaces and very similar designs on their packaging particularly their papers, indicates they are trying to benefit by confusing consumers.

Ian
 
The image is from a screenshot of a page on retrocamera.be. They are making it clear that the products are from a different company to Harman, Ilford, here in the UK.

Silverprint even list Harman Galerie & Ilford Galerie on the same page, one is a silver based paper for optical LED or Laser machine exposure, the other an Inkjet paper. It's just legal so that Silverprint are not at fault, rather that some of the packaging could easily be mistaken for being from Harman.

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Paper packaging from other companies is all quire differently packaged. An issue is if you search Silverprint's site by Brand products are mixed together further confusing anyone not realising the differences.

Ian
 
I believe the technical term is "trade dress", and guess Ilford Japan think they have as much right to use it as Harman, misleading or not. Once assumes lawyers (for both companies) will have raked over the coals a bit. Maybe there is an agreement in place we aren't privy to.

I was certainly confused when I saw it on Jobo's site a few months back and ended up doing a bit of Googling to learn the history. Any new product in the analogue world, especially around alternative process, deserves a cheer, so I hope this doesn't spoil it.
 
I haven't really grasped all the twists and turns of Ilford's acquisition history, or its history of acquisition by others.

www.ilfordphoto.com

History of ILFORD PHOTO

Formed in 1879 by Alfred Hugh Harman in his basement in Ilford, UK, the ILFORD name remains one of the oldest and most established in the photo industry
www.ilfordphoto.com www.ilfordphoto.com

But it seems quite likely that already by the time of the management buyout of Harman in 2005, they didn't have the right to dictate what other parts of the company acquired by other companies could do with the Ilford name. There is nothing especially unusual in that, and not much that I'm scandalized by. If anyone can explain it better, maybe I will be.

I'm from Cheshire myself and never realized at the time that Ilford manufactured locally. I used their film quite a bit in the 1980s when I bought my first camera. In the last couple of weeks, I've been putting together the chemicals and equipment for developing, and didn't spot that Ilford Japan is unrelated to Ilford in England. I'm doing this in Japan, and products from both companies are available, so I've acquired a mix of monochrome film, developer, and fixer from the English company (the developer and fixer are manufactured in Germany, however) and wetting agent from Ilford Japan.

I was curious about the actual cost: a litre of DD-X developer is listed at the moment at 6870 yen, which is 42 pounds in your money. Way beyond what I'm willing to pay. Ilford powder developer for making a litre of stock was 990 yen, so I bought that, and powder is my future, it seems. An equivalent quantity of Fuji Super Prodol is less than 300 yen.
 
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