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Re: Dassonville Charcoal black paper

Hello!

Thanks to everone who clarified this for me. These were beautiful prints. since this is no longer available, is anyone familiar with an artist charoal paper of similar color and texture? I'd love coating my own. 

I think the texture was subtle. Unfortunately it was the last day of the show so I can't go back to the gallery with swatches.:-)

Thanks again!

Mac

On Sat, 25 Mar 2000 15:17:33   Sil Horwitz wrote:
>At 2000/03/25 11:36 AM -0500, Joe Arkins wrote:
>>Dassonville Charcoal Black was a legendary commercially produced 
>>silver-gelatine paper, made during the 1920-45 period, which was produced 
>>by Will Dassonville, an eminent pictorialist.  It was a silver-rich, warm 
>>tone chlorobromide emulsion coated on fine papers in varying textures.  It 
>>hasn't been made since the end of World War II -- Dassonville sold his 
>>factory to Defender Photo Products (I think) but they didn't keep the 
>>product line in production for very long.
>
>Dassonville Charcoal Black was made in only one surface (Rough - like 
>artists' charcoal paper) and provided pure black images. The company made 
>many beautiful papers (including a translucent parchment), all of which 
>were my favorites, but it was a niche market and couldn't survive. The 
>factory was purchased by Defender (which at the time was a Division of 
>DuPont) and DuPont had a policy of "if it doesn't earn a million dollars 
>per item per annum, get rid of it" so they closed down the factory. I know, 
>because Defender's Varigam (as well as Charcoal Black) did not tone well 
>with standard toners, and I created a toner which did work. DuPont sent a 
>factory rep to discuss this with me, but advised me to either produce it 
>myself or get a "smaller" mfr to market it, because of their "million 
>dollar" rule. Of course, Defender went under, too, as soon as their cash 
>cow - Varigam - was replicated by others when the patents expired.
>



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