That is why many fuel-oil companies use carbon forms for receipts, and why airlines that fly in cold climates have luggage tickets with one-time carbons on hand when computers fail.Īt the Korectype company in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, three ancient carbon-coating machines sit forlornly in a corner of a 170,000 square-foot factory presided over by the company's founder and 72-year-old president, Victor Barouh. The ink on carbon paper also works well in cold environments, unlike carbonless paper. ''As long as computers are not 100 percent foolproof, there will be a need for carbon,'' said Marc Leder, managing director of Frye Tech. Most of its business is in making one-time carbons for multipart business forms. The company began as Frye Copy Systems in Des Moines in 1912, and as demand for carbon paper shrank, Frye Tech bought up its competitors. ''With the carbonless forms, after the third or fourth copy you can't read it.''įrye Tech of Boca Raton, Fla., is the nation's leading manufacturer of carbon paper, with $48 million in sales last year. ''Carbon is still the best inexpensive way to make multiple copies,'' Mr. Most of the business is in one-time carbons for business forms, but Codo also manufactures special carbon-coated paper that dentists use to make impressions of teeth and carbon paper used for dressmaking patterns. ''It's not the way it used to be,'' said Jeffrey Dadowski, president of Codo Manufacturing in Leetsdale, Pa., ''but there's still a lot of use for it.'' Codo has been making carbon paper since 1928. McLeod said he did not believe that carbon paper would disappear entirely. Copying machines, laser printers and carbonless paper - which uses a chemical process to create copies without the need for carbon paper - were the final blow.
Carbon paper manual#
The reason: computers have made manual and electric typewriters all but obsolete.
Demand has dropped by 85 percent in the last 20 years, Mr. Today, a few thousand tons a year of re-usable carbon paper is produced, down from about 30,000 tons annually 25 years ago. Norman McLeod, a senior consultant with CAP Ventures of Norwell, Mass., said 24,000 tons of one-time carbon paper was produced in 1997, down from a peak of 220,000 tons in 1979. ''That was 22 years ago.''Ī handful of companies in North America still manufacture carbon paper. ''I wrote a report back in 1976 that predicted there would be no need for carbon paper within 10 years,'' Mr. Gordon said, to countries that are not as technologically advanced as the United States. The remainder of his business is in re-usable carbon paper - thicker, carbon-coated paper sheets available in office supply or stationery stores and usually used to make duplicates in typewriters or by hand. Gordon's business is in one-time carbon paper - the thin, tissuelike carbon paper found on business forms that is used once and thrown away. ''Somebody's buying it,'' said Jim Gordon, president of Form-Mate Carbon Products of Toronto. Yet there remains a small but steady demand for it. Using carbon paper today is like using a mortar and pestle instead of a food processor, or pounding your laundry against a rock instead of using a washing machine. With today's laser and ink-jet printers, word processors, and voice-recognition and spell-checking software, carbon paper - invented by an Englishman named Ralph Wedgewood in the 1820's - is but a shadow of the crucial commodity it was. Carey said, has she felt nostalgic about the messy stuff. No more ink on the hands from handling slimy black carbons.
Carey, 64, a legal secretary for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. It was the early 1970's when her employer, a law firm in Washington, switched from carbons to copiers. ONE of the happiest moments of Norma Carey's life was the day she threw away her carbon paper.
0 kommentar(er)
