An interesting find at the flee market today – A vintage deckle cutter for photographic paper.
I paid 5 euros for the device. It’s a bit bashed up however it works perfectly and super solid. It will make a nice addition to the weekend darkroom.
The edges it produces are unique and not so typical what you’d except these days. I guess that the magic of such machinery. I wouldn’t have bought the cutter if the edges were kind of normal and evenly spaced. That’s really actually what these cutter were made to do.
In fact the ideal behind the jagged or deckle edging was to mimic the sides of fine art paper. To give the feel of a painted picture.
Back in the day when paper was handmade it had jagged edges and that’s what the Agfa paper guillotine is attempting to achieve.
Either way it’s a awesome find an item full of history made of metal, wooden knob and Agfa logo plate etc..
If you wish to know more about deckle edge checkout this Anna Krentz paper on the subject https://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA:2711