In 1994 two novel isomers of porphine, the so called 'N- confused porphyrins' or 'carbaporphyrins' were independently isolated and characterized by Furuta and co-workers' in Japan and Latos-Grazynsky and co-workers2 in Poland. These N- confused meso-tetraphenylporphyrins (1 and 2) were isolated in low yields (5-7% and ca. 5%, respectively) as byproducts of modified preparations of meso-tetraarylporphyrins as originally developed by Rothemund3 and ...