I think those must be old batches. There is no mention of Archival Matte on Epson's website at all
The first thing one should remember is that the word "archival" is not worth a bucket of warm spit (to be polite) period, in the world we operate in. I'm always amused at how photographers these days label their prints "archival inkjet print". Who has defined what archival is, what does it mean? Nothing really. It is just a deceptive over used meaningless word that Epson like other corporations at one time took advantage of. I hope they are not starting it up again.
Originally Ansel Adams started the common use of archival in regard to fixing and washing techniques associated with darkroom silver prints. His standard was hopefully to achieve at least 100 years without change. We now know silver prints should go many times over that without change in decent storage conditions. But this term archival now has become warped and distorted in recent decades to include everything from Fuji Type C prints (40 Willhelm years at their very best and I question that for a dye) to poorly designed inkjet inks that are not researched in any professional way for long term stability, to cheap wood pulp papers with tons of optical brighteners that burn out in a few years when exposed to daylight. Enhanced Matte is a prime example of that kind of media. Other papers being sold my Moab and Red River, and others, are just as bad.
I started using it 12 years ago and abandoned it about 8 years ago after watching the paper base shift from bright white to gray on everything over time, even in dark storage. Unfortunately Wilhelm's distorted and poorly conceived fade data of this media ( that apparently did not take in to consideration oba burnout), has contributed the most confusion to this Enhanced Matte, and he probably still has misleading data about it on his site to this day. I've personally replaced many pieces that I did for clients on this paper that had even been framed behind uv glass. It is fine and cheap for many short term purposes, as long as they don't suggest it will last, because it won't.
john
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "horstenj" <j.h.j.h@...> wrote:
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> Can some-one shed a light on the current situation wrt Epson Enhanced and Archival Matte?
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> As fas as I know, there was originally a paper called Archival Matte that turned out not to be of archival quality at all. Consequently, this paper was renamed to Enhanced Matte. For some time the paper remained to be sold under both names. In my perception, the name Archival Matte slowly dissappeared.
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> But now it seems to me that it has resurrected. On some places I see Enhanced and Archival Matte (still? again?) offered side by side. Are these different papers now and is the Archival really archival? Or are they still the same? Or am I mistaken altogether?
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> Joost
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