Smooth glossy F — Ferrotype
smooth lustre A(lightweight) B Cream and N white
[alt: A for Airbrush]
[alt: N for Natural, air dried]
fine grain lustre E white, G cream
[alt: E for Exhibition, G for Gallery]
smooth high lustre J
fine grain- high lustre D snowwhite, K cream
rough luster L cream
tweed lustre R cream
suede matt V cream
Silk lustre Y cream
tapestry lustre X cream, and Z old ivory

The use of a capital letter to designate surface for Kodak products dates to at least 1886 when A (smooth surface, thin), B (smooth surface, heavy), and C (rough surface, heavy) were used to describe Eastman Permanent Bromide papers. As the number of surfaces increased so did the letters and by 1912 A through H were in use in Azo. However, at this same time, surfaces were also being designated by numbers and some products had no surface designation. Also, the use of letters was not consistent so that a single letter could mean something different in different product lines. By the early 1930s, all of the letters of the alphabet were in use (except I which appears to have never been used) as well as numbers 1 through 11 and some multiples such as AA or B1. It was not until the 1940s that Kodak simplified the system by making letters unique to a surface (almost unique as there were exceptions over the years). The convention was also established that a surface represented a unique combination of texture/sheen(gloss)/paper tint. For example, F represented smooth/glossy/white. When resin coated papers were introduced, letters were assigned based on similarity to the appearance of the fiber based grades. F glossy in RC came from F smooth/glossy/white in fiber base, E lustre came from E fine-grained/lustre/white, Y silk came from Y silk/lustre/cream white and N matte came from N smooth/matte/white (a designation from the 1940s).