Rocky, I have found that the old school stuff on glass plates or even the large format such as 4x5 did a wonderful job in Black and White. I have actually started to get back into large format and my old Yashica 124G in 120 film. You can still order it and get it developed or you can get your own enlarger setup for even more fun!
My great Uncle was Harry Pidgeon, the Sailor. You can google him. He was a Photographer in the lumber camps in central California before he was a sailor but he was the second man to circumnavigate the globe by himself and he did it three times. Well, the last time he cracked up the boat in New Hebrides during a storm but nonetheless, he was a great photographer. I have some large format negatives and some glass plates of his and I also have a full size scanner with a transparency adapter so I can scan slides and such. I have scanned some of his stuff and the quality is crazy good for the times.