How can you tell if an enlarger is B&W or color?

[hyperjoga]

I just got a Beseler 23CII enlarger from a friend who got it from his brother-in-law. I'm not sure if it's a color enlarger or B&W.... How can I tell?

Many thanks!

 

[ksmattfish]

Most enlargers can do either, it's just that some are more convenient.

I would say that most modern color enlargers are diffusion head(florescent bulb and white diffusion screen). But my old condenser head(regular screw-in bulb and big chunks of glass) DII says "color-ready" on it, so in the past people used the condenser heads for color too.

Having the cyan, yellow, and magenta filters built into the head makes color printing easier, but it's also possible to stack C, M, and Y gels in the filter drawer to achieve the same effect in enlargers that don't have the built in filters.