Rhodia Paper Project: Weeks 1-5

The fine folks at Exaclair, Inc. are the US importers of Rhodia paper products, and being the slavering fanboy that I am, I was very pleased to see them running the "Rhodia Paper Project" from their blog, whereby other fanboys/fangirls could sign up to get samples of their various products mailed to them on a weekly basis to test out, in return for comments and feedback.

This had the back luck to happen just before NaNoWriMo kicked off this year, and although I've been diligent about signing up each week via Rhodia Drive, I've been pretty slack about testing or commenting, because, you know, noveling. I'm digging out after my win now, and am making up for lost time...

Week 1: Your choice of grid

The contenders:

• Rhodia Ice: white/grey/graph
• Rhodia 80th Anniversary ivory/grey/graph
• Rhodia Classic white/blue/graph

We start off by trying out the various forms of grid colors. I personally like using graph-style paper if it's available, especially for note-taking and NaNo plotting since I have terribly slop handwriting, and tend to drift all over without guidelines. I've got some notebooks old enough to have bluish grids, which I think Rhoida has since replaced with a violet ink (more eco-friendly sources, I gather.) My go-to ink color is blue for just about everything -- easy to tell when it's been photocopied -- so this week was about testing which ink I liked best against the three different grids and the paper colors.

I was predisposed not to like the ivory paper, which seemed a little faded or even dirty compared to the clean white of the other two. Maybe it's the grid talking, but it seems like the grid shouts "professional and serious" and the ivory paper says "quaint drawing room." I am also surrounded by white office paper all day, and use it in my meeting notebooks, so again, bias.

• Rhodia Ice: white/grey/graph 

This was my favorite of the three samples, by far. The gray grid is very light on the paper, clear enough to see, but not clashing with any of the inks or pencils that I tried on it. The paper is the lighter of the two weights supplied (90g vs. 80g) but this is not paper you're going to send letters on, most likely. The grid says "serious" to me, and would be appropriate in a lab or classroom.

• Rhodia 80th Anniversary ivory/grey/graph

My least favorite sample of the three, though the grid is subtle, and against the ivory paper, looks almost brown. I can't get past the color for this application, though. Clearly this is a personal moral shortcoming.

• Rhodia Classic white/blue/graph

Second choice, and the one I already own in different sizes. In comparison to the "Ice" product, the lines are very visible, and especially when using blue ink -- the grid tends to clash more with my writing instead of fading invisibly into the background like the gray.

Week 2: Take a letter

The contenders: 

• Clairefontaine Graf It
• G Lalo Stationery (white)
• Clairefontaine Triomphe

The second week is all about stationery, so the samples are unlined and plain. This is what you write your post-holiday thank-you notes on, and in that context, everything I said above pretty much goes out the window here. There really is a time-and-place for various papers, something I've not given much thought to before.

• Clairefontaine Graf It 

Plain white, and with a slight, subtle texture on the surface. This is nice stuff, 90g, and was grippy enough to use pencil -- some of the regular Rhodia paper has a slickness that's welcome with fountain pens but disconcerting with a pencil. You need a little friction, and this has it. It reminds me very much of the bagasse (sugarcane waste) paper that I use for NaNo typing, with a little toothiness, but heavier than cheap old office paper. I would not be sad to own a pad of this with some ostentatious monogram in the corner.

• G Lalo Stationery (white) 

Though this says "white," compared to the other two samples, it's a very light cream color. It has visible horizontal texture lines to it, and a subtle vertical line (watermark?) every 3cm. I was predisposed to dislike this entirely, expecting it to be grabby, toothy, and hard to use with my preferred pens. I'm pleased to say that I'm wrong on all fronts. Pencil behaves nicely even when writing lightly, and fountain pens give just the right amount of feedback. This is languid, letter-writing paper, and the color for this application is perfect. The clear winner.

• Clairefontaine Triomphe

Of the three, my least favorite, though it's like trying to choose amount three very-good things. The same weight as the Graf It, but utterly smooth, like Rhodia pads, and as such, badly-behaved with pencils. Fountain pens skate all over the surface as expected, and the gel rollerballs I was testing with were so quick it felt like driving on ice. I would not say no to this if it were foisted on me in a dark alley, for sure, but if you're going to do correspondence, treat yourself and the recipient to one of the other two.

Week 3: The journal selection

The contenders:  

• 5×8 Webnotepad Lined, (same as Webbie paper)
• 6×8 Lined R
• 6×8 Lined Rhodia 80g 

Week three is what I think of as the "journal selection." It's an odd size paper for my own needs, which tend toward the letter-size or A4 notebooks. These are all lined, with big broad spaces. Lots of room for inmost thoughts, I suppose. I don not have a rich inner life that requires documenting.

• 5×8 Webnotepad Lined
• 6×8 Lined R

 A tie this week, and mainly because the difference falls between if you want a little extra width as in the "R" pad, or rounded bottom corners as in the "Webnotepad." The "R" is top-perforated, like many of their notebooks, so it's entirely possible this is meant for less permanent writing. The other is not perforated -- the sample has clearly been torn out of a pad -- and if you're keeping a journal, that seems like it would be of more use to you. I have an unlined Webbie that accompanies me to back-to-school nights, kids' sport meetings, and other real-life/non-work situations where I need to jot down notes and numbers, and don't want to lose them. Both pages are 90g ivory, with the grey lines, and again, for this use, I can see it being superior to the white-with-blue.

• 6×8 Lined Rhodia 80g 

Another choose-among-very-good-things, but this has a large red margin rule down the left side -- "large" here meaning 1 1/2" of space, which is a quarter of the page width. This feels really wide, and if you're even the tiniest bit OCD (ahem) it may bother you that so much "good" paper is going to waste over there, especially if you grew up with the cheap filler paper and spiral notebooks like I did, with the margin line dancing dangerously close to the holes punched in the paper.

Week 4: Colorful students

The contenders: 

• 1 sheet of the 8×11″ Clairefontaine Pastel Graph paper
• 1 3×5″ Exacompta Pastel Index Card

There are times when I regret not being a student again, because I've since learned quite a bit about note taking, organization, and the excitement of a well-stocked university bookstore. Then a come to my senses and remember the terrible food, crushing debt, and general lack of sleep, and am glad I'm gainfully employed instead. This week isn't so much a comparison as just a taste of products that I would totally send to student-version-me, once I get that time machine worked up.

• 8×11″ Clairefontaine Pastel Graph paper

Normally I could give a pass on pastel paper, but this is pressing all my organization-nerd buttons: bound in a spiral notebook with perforations for easy removal. Heavy 90g paper with a grid on both sides. My sample was a light blue sheet, and the normal Rhodia purple grid looks fine against it. There's an index tab cut out of the side for indexing the notes, and I'm guessing this comes in a multi-subject notebook offering many sections of different colors. The grid is ideal for math formulas and structured notes. I wish I would have used graph paper all through my computing classes.

• 1 3×5″ Exacompta Pastel Index Card 

Actually, two in my envelope: one green, and one yellow. Unlike cheapo index cards, the grid is on both sides, they are heavy paper (205g), and of course, pen-friendly. I used index cards to remember (i.e., cram) everything before exams. Past-student me would have certainly matched up the cards to the notebook colors, just because.

Week 5: Size does matter

The contenders: 

• No. 8, (3 x 8 ¼”)
• No. 10 (2 x 3″)
• No.16 (6 x 8 ¼ “)
• No. 19 (8 ¼ x 12 ½ “)

The best thing about Rhodia products -- aside from general pen-compatibility -- is that there's a size for every purpose. The worst things about Rhodia products is that there's a size for every purpose. The choice alone can be overwhelming, and in those rare cases when I am in a retail store that actually sells them, just spinning through the rack gets me a little dizzy... as in I could totally buy ten of these and use them for... I don't know what...

Like the previous week, these don't lend themselves to being compared with one another. They are all lined in violet on 80g white paper. The largest sizes have the same wide margin, and all are top-perforated.

• No. 8, (3 x 8 ¼”) 

If you don't have a ruler handy, think "bookmark size" or "shopping list size." I own a gridded variant of this, and I use it for both purposes. It's just wide enough to get a decent list written down, and plenty long for use as a notes/bookmark. Consider using one to keep characters straight in your next Russian novel.

• No. 10 (2 x 3″)

Almost comically small, just a little larger than half a business card. Small enough that you could keep one each in your pocket, bag, car, desk, stuck to the fridge on a magnet, glued to the dog, etc.. The lines are pretty well spaced apart given the amount of paper you're looking at here. Maybe for composing tweets offline? I struggle to find a use for this, other than as the ultimate tiny notebook when you need to jot down some critical fact, like, to pick a random example out of the air, the name of a piece you heard on the car radio, forgot, and then have spent a decade trying to remember. Just for example.

• No.16 (6 x 8 ¼ “) 

See Week 3 for thoughts on this size. Tucked in with other lined samples, I can see this being most useful as the by-the-phone doodle and message pad, maybe the tote-to-a-meeting pad where you don't want to commit to actually taking a large number of notes, but don't want to get in trouble for staring at your phone the whole time, either. I personally find this size just a little too small for my writing needs at work, and too big to carry around casually.

• No. 19 (8 ¼ x 12 ½ “) 

Ah, now we're talking. This is A4 sized, a little narrower and a little longer than a US Letter size, and the one I'm used to for my own meeting notes (I'm working through a backlog of old Black n' Red A4 notebooks.) The left margin is just as wide, almost wanton, but at least in the larger format, it can be used to call out points of interest: flagging to-do items is an obvious use case for me. I do like bringing paper to meetings, and having a whole year's worth of meeting notes in one place has proven invaluable to me, since I can flip back and reference old notes. The Rhodia is in a top-bound orientation, though -- like a legal pad -- and that I would find less useful than the spiral-bound books I use now. Of the four samples, though, this one has the most utility for me, and I could get past the top-binding pretty quick. I suspect the paper would hold up to disc binding very well if I needed to make an archive notebook. A future sample is slated to include their "meeting book" paper, which looks to be just about perfect. I think I'm ready to graduate beyond the simple lined-only books in the (sigh) five years when the Black n' Reds run out. Or sooner, if they meet an "accident."

Paperlympics: Qualifying Round Results

Buried somewhere in that silly post featuring toy rhinos and brass 'roos was the question: is a yellow Rhodia pad "toothier" than a white pad, though they are -- in theory -- the same paper?



My own scribble testing results in an unequivocal yes. The paper is noticeably different, using the various writing instruments shown above, plus a few others I tossed into the mix after the initial results. And to tell you the truth, even knowing what to expect, I was surprised that I could detect the difference so easily.

All the pencils were far quieter on the white pad, and noticeably louder on the yellow. This was especially pronounced in the mechanical pencil, which maintains a very narrow tip, but even that big chunky Moleskine pencil was markedly different. The yellow paper absolutely gives more feedback as you're writing on it. The white pad is nearly ninja-silent with a pencil.

Almost all of the pens I tried with a "fine" or "medium" nib exhibited the same properties: more feedback, a touch more noise. My red Sheaffer school pen is notoriously scratchy on cheap paper, and I tend to use it only on nicer paper as a result. It magnified the difference in surfaces between the two pads, though it wasn't unpleasant on either. Most medium-nib pens were noticeable. Only when I moved up to the italic-nibbed Pilot did the differences go away. Perhaps the wideness of the nib skates over the tiny surface differences, or I'm just not a good enough penman to know the difference.

Given this result, I brought out a couple more extreme examples: a super-fine rollerball pen, a couple of colored pencils, a cheap ballpoint, and a broad calligraphy nib in a plastic Sheaffer, cousin to the school pen. All except the calligraphy pen were different. What's more, the Calligraphy pen revealed tiny amounts of feathering on the yellow pad, and even a few pinpoints of ink bleeding through. Were I a calligrapher and not just some slob, the yellow paper would be demoted to the "practice only" pile.

The last thing I've tested out is front-versus-back. Paper has a finishing step when it's made, and I remember from a few mis-spent summers as an all-around-office-boy that there's a "right" and a "wrong" side to paper. Wikipedia has a piece on paper sizing if you want to know more -- sizing as in finishing, not on paper sizes, which is a different article. The final round of tests was comparing writing on the front and back. I'm less sure about this test: sometimes I'd swear that the back of the white paper was rougher than the front of the yellow, at other times there were about the same. If there is a quality difference between front and back, it's a tough one to discern.

Three final observations to make, and then scans of the front-side tests are after the break.

First, the white paper is cooler to the touch, as in temperature-cool, not leather-jacket-and-Harley cool. I'm positioned underneath an air vent which can't help, but by resting a hand on each, the yellow paper warms up faster. Color difference? Surface difference? The magic of thermodynamics is at play, anyhow. There's a thesis in there for a physics student, perhaps.

Second, the yellow paper just seems thinner. I don't have any reason to doubt the stated weight on the cover, and have no way to verify it beyond just a shake test, and noticing things like ink bleed-through and show-through. For an extreme test, I have a disposable fountain pen filled from one of those inkjet printer refill kits which practically pours ink down the nib. The resulting letters show through on the yellow, less so on the white, though neither are very happy with trying to hold that much ink. I didn't say it was a fair test.

Third, and finally: although the yellow may have come out "worse" here, it's the better of the two in certain circumstances. If I were a student and using pencils on a regular basis, the white paper is quieter and smoother, but the yellow is surely easy on the eyes after a weekend binge or an unfortunate move to Daylight Savings (or both.) Some of the pens find the white paper almost too smooth. The Pelikan, for instance, always wants to skip on the white, but is fine on the yellow where the surface of the paper and the capillary action of the nib mumble mumble mumble handwave it just worked better, OK? This is not an unusual circumstance for pen owners, as we're always looking for excuses to buy more supplies find the perfect combination of pen/paper/ink. It's the El Dorado of the ink addict.

So, there you go, Exaclair -- a highly unscientific and unfocused confirmation of your own customer feedback.

When my daughter and I get the chance, we're going to kick off our own more involved tests at home, comparing to other brands of yellow and white writing pads. Stay tuned for that, and a return to rhino-and-roo, the paper pals.

Paperlympics: Opening Ceremonies

For best effect, play while reading...

When I saw the post last month on Rhodia Drive about the chance to test-drive a pair of their writing pads -- one with yellow, one with white paper -- I was perhaps a tiny bit interested.  I already have a professed love for the bright orange brand, having been turned on to its magical ink-friendly properties by the enablers at Fountain Pen Network. And I know the generosity of their marketing department with samples, so of course I threw the Clickthing hat in the ring, and then waited (im)patiently for a confirmation email, and ultimately a package from Exaclair. The package arrived yesterday, and I am not disappoint, as the kids say.[1]


Two A4 tablets, 80 pages each... oooh, be still, my paper-lovin' heart

You can go back and read the original post, but the upshot of this trial is: the yellow paper is "toothier" than the white. It's already been confirmed by Stephanie at Rhodia Drive, but this offer is to try it out with other writing instruments, and then report back to Exaclair/Rhodia HQ. As I love me a paper test, I of course set to gathering the competitors in what I'm modestly calling:

The Paperlympic Games of 2014

I agreed to test them out with pens, and test them I shall. And since I'm curious, I also want to try them out with whatever pencils I have here or could scrounge from the office supply room at work. You can see them in their parade formation as they entered the stadium, but we caught them in a more relaxed moment back in the athlete dormitories.

The Athletes

The competitors, in a moment of repose

Like Sochi, there are some small issues of comfort that need to be sorted out, but generally everyone is happy. From left to right, the competitors are:

• Representing the Czech Republic: the Moleskine brand 2B hipster pencil
• Representing probably China: the Sanford Clickster 0.5mm mechanical pencil
• Laying crosswise, another China entrant: the Dixon Ticonderoga 2HB woodcase pencil
• From the United States of America, a late-80s vintage Sheaffer school pen, F nib with period Skrip jet black ink
• Representing Germany, the Lamy Safari, F nib with Lamy blue ink
• Also from Germany, a Pelikan m205, M nib with Waterman Serenity Blue ink from France
• From, um, Levengerland, a True Writer demonstrator, M nib with modern Sheaffer Skrip blue/black from Slovenia
• From Japan, a Pilot Knight with a M italic nib from a Plumix pen, inked with Pilot/Namiki blue/black

Let's have a round of applause for them, everyone!

The Field of Competition

For the qualifying round, athletes will go head-to-head on these carefully-manicured surfaces.


All markings follow IPC guidelines

On the surface -- ha! -- this paper appears to be the same. Both are 80g/m² "High Grade Vellum Paper," both lined with margins. Both feature heavy foldover covers and a stiffish piece of cardboard affixed in the back to provide support for writing. Both are staple-bound with a fine perforation along the top edge to enable easy removal. Both feature Rhodia's purple lines with a red margin, though the lines appear darker on the yellow paper, and a bit brown, likely thanks to the color contrast.

Identical but for paper color, yes? Well, that's what we're here to find out.

For more, let's go over to the field where our on-the-scene reporters are standing by with some insightful color commentary.


This does not bode well

Roo: Too right! It's as pale as a wallaby's bumhole! [2] Crikey! Uluru!

Rhino: O HAI I SEE YELLO

...

Annnnnnnnnd with that, we'll go back to the studio.

The Judging

This one's a little tough, since I'm coming in with a bias; I know that I'm expecting the yellow pad to be a little scratchier with a pencil, so I'm mainly looking for other differences in feel between the two surfaces with the different instruments. It'll be as scientific and impartial as a blog post can be -- that is to say, it'll be chock full of baseless opinions [3] in which accidental facts may unintentionally appear.

I'm going to use each of these for the next week or so, and write up my opinions-carefully-phrased-as-facts, share them with Exaclair, and you lucky readers. Both of you.

But it doesn't stop there! In the interest of true fairness, and to explore the whole notion of blind studies and the scientific method, there is a second, longer portion to the Paperlympics. Just as the real Olympic games feature countless variants on "two people ice skating together" [4] so, too, does the full-blown Paperlympics finals have an excruciating number of nearly-identical events.

I've prepared a number of samples of paper, in which the Rhodia is secretly mixed, for my daughter and I to test out at home. In this way, we'll be putting it not only through the paces of the paper-obsessed office worker, but also the rigors of the typical tweenage homeschooler. And we'll be turning it into something of a science lesson, too, by checking properties, assigning scores, and in the end, looking at the samples under a microscope (because science.) She doesn't know which sample is which, so I'm hoping to eliminate at least a shade of bias. I will attempt to refrain from comments like "this next one is TOTALLY AWESOME AND FREE so score it accordingly, won't you?"

But first, we need to get through the early rounds of this fine, traditional, just-made-it-up-last-week sport. If you're anything like me, you just want to skip ahead to the finals and see if there's any spectacular crashes. Be patient! I'm sure with me at the helm, disaster cannot be too far behind.

So, sports paper fans, stay tuned! We'll be back with results after this commercial break.

---

[1] No kids actually say this.

[2] No Australians actually say this.

[3] Opinions, it is said, are like bumholes. Everyone has one, and you should keep yours private. Especially if you're a wallaby.

[4] All of which are shown on evening TV at the expense of any other events, not that I'm still bitter, NBC-I'm-looking-at-you. Thank goodness for DVRs and/or perfectly legal streaming.

Notebook Review and Paper Prize-a-Palooza

Six years ago, I gave up a job I'd held in San Francisco, the job that lured me out of the midwest to the palm-and-fog-kissed shores of Northern California. I don't regret the move, or giving up the long commute, or no longer being the un-hippest person in a very hip city. Sometimes, however, I do regret giving up the convenience of working right in the middle of an urban center, where a walk of a few blocks could take me through North Beach, Fisherman's Wharf, and in sight of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate, or (when our offices moved), the bustle of the financial and museum districts. There were two stationery stores that I haunted regularly during my time in the City (always capitalized) but trading that in for a job far closer to my suburban home meant swapping urbane and cool for strip malls and chain stores. (Rest assured, I'm still very much the un-hippest person on my commute.)

This is a long-winded way at getting at today's topic: a review of the Rhodia "Webbie" journal that was graciously arranged by Stephanie of the Rhodia Drive blog, and Karen Doherty of Exaclair, Rhodia's U.S. importer, and who I now envision as an orange-clad Santa Claus. Stephanie asked if I'd be willing to review a blank Webbie here, given that I've whined very publicly about the impossibility of laying hands on one at any of my local retailers. Here in the uncool 'burbs, we can only get hands-on time with Rhodia at Borders Books or Target. The latter focuses on their pad-style products, and the former neglects them almost entirely, in favor of their house-brand journals and a big Tower o' Moleskine. I'll come back to that.

Anyhow, Stephanie offered, Karen hooked me up, and the package showed up yesterday. Here it is:



Pretty, isn't it? Like most of their products, the webbie comes with either a black or orange cover. I happen to like the orange, since it shows up best in the depths of my massively over-packed bag. And the orange is a distinctive Rhodia color: those-in-the-know can spot a Rhodia user from across the room. You can't help it: these suckers are bright.

Technical specs: the webbie comes in two sizes, A5 and A6 if you're keen on the ISO standard paper sizes, or "half page" and "quarter page" if you're not. This is an A5 size, dimensions are 5 1/2" x 8 1/4", and overall thickness of the notebook is about 5/8" closed, with the pocket empty. There are 192 pages inside, divided among six signatures sewn into the binding. The pages will lie flat with a little encouragement at first: work through the pages from both ends and run a finger along the spine to spread them out a bit. The binding is loose enough that you can write very far into the fold without problems.



Rhodia appears to be positioning themselves against Moleskine here, as the webbie sports the same general features list: sewn signatures, attached ribbon bookmark, expanding pocket on the inside back cover, elastic closure. Unlike Moleskine and Rhodia's own line of pads, the covers of a webbie are a cushioned material around a stiff center. Their web site says this is "Italian leatherette," though to my hand it feels slightly rubbery: not unpleasantly so, just slightly squishy and padded. It's stiffer than the oilcloth cover of a Moleskine, and provides enough firmness that you can write without a surface behind it in a pinch. I tried writing on it while sitting in a variety of postures -- including sitting up in bed -- and it was comfortable to hold.



Also unlike Moleskine, the webbie uses Clairefontaine paper, which is French-made by a gaggle of delicate cream-skinned maidens. I'm not quite sure about that last fact, but I do know that Clairefontaine paper is famed for its fountain-pen friendliness. It is wonderfully smooth paper, and takes ink without feathering or bleeding through to the opposite side, and with minimal show-through. The webbie product has undergone some revisions as the first production runs did not use a pen-friendly paper. Stephanie posted details about this, and I'm pleased to say that the revisions were worth it. The paper may appear white in these photos, but it is actually a light cream color. This might matter if you're an artist or artistically inclined and want a true white background. As a writing notebook, the color of the paper is fine.





The webbie withstood my "new notebook torture test" with flying colors (ha! ink pun.) If you cannot read my scrawls, I hit the page with:

• An extra-fine steel-nibbed pen inked with Parker Quink black. EF nibs can catch and snag on paper.
• A Parker Latitude fountain pen (the silver one pictured above), also inked with Quink. This has a particularly wet nib and is my firehose of ink. It makes note cards weep.
• A Levenger True-Writer inked with Levenger "Bahama Blue," which I am currently using on my brain-dump notebook for NaNoWriMo. Levenger inks are pretty dye-heavy, and I can see bright colors showing through paper better than dark ones.
• Some "generic" writing instruments: a #2 pencil, a "hard"-lead pencil, a couple of ballpoints in different colors, a wax crayon, a magic marker and colored pencils from my daughter's art kit.
• Three Sharpie markers: the regular sized one ("fine" if you believe that), an extra-fine one, and a super-wide one, meant for yard sale signs and the like.
• I also hit the page with some soak-through tests: drawing dense crosshatches and scribbles in one place, going back over sections later with a pen, and using a cotton swab to paint a section of the page.

The paper is thin enough that some of the writing will show through to the opposite side, but I don't think it's bad enough to worry about. More notable is the amount of ink that does not show through, including the swab test and my dense scribbles. Those are barely discernible. The only issues I had were:

• The hard lead pencil is faint against the cream colored paper. I suspect the paper is too smooth to really give the lead enough friction. The #2 pencil shows up fine.
• The Sharpies soaked through, especially the super-wide one. The extra-fine one did bleed in spots, so if you like to use these for writing or drawing, you may require a heavier paper.
• The paper puckered slightly when it was particularly wet -- for the swab test, for instance -- but it smoothed out upon drying.
• I was bitten by drying time for some pens. There is a small amount of wait for ink to fully dry on the paper, and if you're the impatient type, eager to play with a new notebook (me, in other words), you'll find that some of the ink transfers to the adjacent page. You can see some ink spots on the orange end-paper in the photos. Some folks carry a couple of sheets of blotter paper in their journals to slip between fresh-written pages. It's something to consider if you're using a fountain pen.
  

Some show-through on the paper, but it's not distracting


Sharpie was the only pen I could get to bleed through


Allow some drying time, unless you like Rorschach blobs

Otherwise, the Clairefontaine paper held up like a champ. I've heard of paper issues with Moleskine notebooks, and never being one to stop a juicy rumor, I'll repeat it here. As I understand it, they have different suppliers for different size notebooks, and some pen aficionados are upset about this (rightfully, IMHO.) If you're going to drop your hard-earned on a snazzy notebook, you should be assured that it's not going to feather all over the place. The performance of the paper in the webbie is on par with the performance of the Rhodia pads, of which I'm a vocal fan. And availability online is quite good, even if your local options are limited.

---

Entries are closed, I'll post winners in a new topic.

And if your local options are limited, then let me introduce you to the first-ever Clickthing Paper Prize-a-Palooza, or Stop Me From Showing Up On That "Hoarders" Show. Part of the deal for getting my hands on a review notebook is that I would also receive a second notebook to give away. And let me tell you, this is a tough thing to do, since I am a mean, selfish person. But the spirit of Exaclair Goodness is upon me today (are you paying attention, Karen?) and so I'm giving to you, lucky reader, the chance to win a Webbie of your very own. Covet it. Write in it. Name it George. All you need to do is leave a single, non-spam comment on this post, perhaps raving about your love of paper products, or how great you think free stuff in the mail is, or how great I am, or all of the above. At some point in the future, I will count the comments and run them past the magic robot at random.org to pick a lucky winner of a twin webbie to my own. This one, in fact:


Ooooh!

If this doesn't sway your heart to the Power of the Orange, then you are a cold, dark person. But I don't judge. And because I'm simply suffused with the power of good right now, I'm also clearing the shelves and handing out these additional prizes, for folks who don't win the webbie...

Second Prize: a pair of leather-covered "M" journals from Staples. A5 size, lined paper with a classy gilt edge. Pay no attention to the Clearance stickers on the paper band. These would make really nice gifts, which is what I thought when I bought them, and then realized that all my gift-receiving people are heathens and slobs who don't deserve nice things. But you do.

Aaaah!

Third Prize: a trio of Canson 4x6" hardbound notebooks. I keep one of these around for testing new pens and inks, but I don't need all of them. One has a small nick on the spine (not shown in picture.)


Hmmmm!

Consolation Prize: four boxes of Southworth "Fine Granite Note Paper" in ivory, each piece is 5"x5", and there are 275 sheets per box, so, um, a lot of note paper. You will never want for note paper again. Ever.


Huh?

Yes, that's right. I like the Clearance racks. But now you can too. Just leave a single, non-spam comment below and you'll be entered for the drawing, to happen as soon as I feel like there's enough comments to make it worthwhile or I get tired of looking at all this stuff on my desk. I will announce the drawing before it takes place, and will contact winners by email. Please make sure I can do this through your comment.
I will pick a bunch of winners, and the first one I can get in touch with gets the webbie, then the second gets the pair of journals, the third gets the mini notebooks, and the fourth gets a big honking box full of notepaper.

You will need to pass your mailing address to me in private if you win, so please be prepared for this. I will ship reasonably, but cheaply, especially if you live somewhere really expensive to get to, like Mars.

OK, you made it to the bottom. Go forth and comment!