Re: Direct Carbon Potential.

["Christina Z. Anderson" <zphoto@montana.net>]

> Hi All, I have absolutely no expertise in manufacturing anything (except 
> children) but what sort of strikes me is this. If there is no commercial 
> value to the manufacture of carbon paper etc..Why is everyone so secretive 
> about the process? Regards David H
OHMAGOSH David how astute you are...this gave me a good laugh this morning.

When Pouncy introduced his Carbon process to the photographic society he got 
trounced because he showed prints but did not reveal the secrets of his 
process.  He got accused of trying to profit from it, then of being 
secretive because of taking out a patent, and even though the records from 
that time SHOW that they couldn't even tell the difference between a carbon 
(direct) and a BW print, history to this day says there were "no halftones" 
etc. etc.--even in the journals only a few decades later!  Apparently they 
did not read back far enough to remember, but Pouncy's son William set the 
record straight when the gum convo started up again in the 1890's.

The same today--secrecy surrounds the process and there IS monetary gain to 
be had.  One difference is that the direct carbon today probably contains 
other colloids aside from just gum as did Pouncy's process.  However, as I 
have reported already to the list, there was the use of methylated alcohol 
to harden the layer which made it able to do a pure gum, post sensitized 
paper.

Anyway, my interest in a direct carbon paper is only mild, insofar as in my 
gum research, gum printing was called so many different names--carbon 
printing, direct carbon, bi-gum, pigment printing, on and on  so I had to 
read all of the literature in order to weed out what I needed.  In the 
process, I realized the extreme commercial viability of the paper, and the 
only reason IMHO it did not continue was the move towards straight 
photography in the 1920's.

If it weren't commercially viable, why would Nadeau buy the "secret" as he 
says he did?

And, there is room for more than one direct carbon paper on the market. 
I've come up with about 10 names from the 1900's all competing at once.
Chris