For literally decades I've used legal pads, although I had moved from the full sized to junior ones. Paper quality for fountain pen use of these style pads ranges from poor to what can best be said as reasonable.
The only experience I've had with quality paper was some stuff my resume was printed on way way back when and some Clairfontaine 100gsm paper in an Exacompta refillable journal notebook obtained when I retired over a decade ago. Diaries and journals have never been my "thing" so they didn't see any substantive use.
Well recently my curiosity got to me resulting in my ordering one each A5 Rhodia No16 and Fabriano EcoQua dot style notepads. These like my junior legal pads allow each sheet used to be torn off which as said is my preference as opposed to journals. You may find some online reviews written by folks who thought the gluebound EcoQua offerings were journal styled notebooks. Frankly Fabriano screwed up calling them that instead of notepads. Accordingly there are lots of disappointed folks lamenting the fact that the sheets tear off so easily. Fabriano does have spiral and stapled A5 notebooks in their EcoQua series though for those who prefer.
The Rhodia is obviously the most well known of the two I bought and is often touted as a benchmark of sorts for fountain pen users. It has 80 pages of 80gsm paper with 5mm dot spacing whereas the EcoQua has 90 sheets of 85gsm 4mm dot spaced paper. Since the EcoQua is glue bound on the left margin as opposed to the Rhodia's top tear pad binding, the usable size of the pages is larger with the Fabriano. Both are high quality. But I found myself preferring the EcoQua for the subdued dots, their spacing, and the feel of my nibs on the paper. Even with very wet wide nibs like my Pelikan M1000 OBB and Italix extra broad oblique italic there was no bleed through with the EcoQua paper. Great stuff!
Then I spotted a deal at DickBlick where these with two particular colored covers were priced at a sale/clearance that was less than a quarter of what I had paid for my first pad. I promptly ordered 20 more.
Bottom line here is that they are a great highly recommended alternative to the benchmark Rhodia and at the ridiculous sale price of $1.49 each plus shipping they are a fantastic buy for those who prefer quality notepads!
The only experience I've had with quality paper was some stuff my resume was printed on way way back when and some Clairfontaine 100gsm paper in an Exacompta refillable journal notebook obtained when I retired over a decade ago. Diaries and journals have never been my "thing" so they didn't see any substantive use.
Well recently my curiosity got to me resulting in my ordering one each A5 Rhodia No16 and Fabriano EcoQua dot style notepads. These like my junior legal pads allow each sheet used to be torn off which as said is my preference as opposed to journals. You may find some online reviews written by folks who thought the gluebound EcoQua offerings were journal styled notebooks. Frankly Fabriano screwed up calling them that instead of notepads. Accordingly there are lots of disappointed folks lamenting the fact that the sheets tear off so easily. Fabriano does have spiral and stapled A5 notebooks in their EcoQua series though for those who prefer.
The Rhodia is obviously the most well known of the two I bought and is often touted as a benchmark of sorts for fountain pen users. It has 80 pages of 80gsm paper with 5mm dot spacing whereas the EcoQua has 90 sheets of 85gsm 4mm dot spaced paper. Since the EcoQua is glue bound on the left margin as opposed to the Rhodia's top tear pad binding, the usable size of the pages is larger with the Fabriano. Both are high quality. But I found myself preferring the EcoQua for the subdued dots, their spacing, and the feel of my nibs on the paper. Even with very wet wide nibs like my Pelikan M1000 OBB and Italix extra broad oblique italic there was no bleed through with the EcoQua paper. Great stuff!
Then I spotted a deal at DickBlick where these with two particular colored covers were priced at a sale/clearance that was less than a quarter of what I had paid for my first pad. I promptly ordered 20 more.
Bottom line here is that they are a great highly recommended alternative to the benchmark Rhodia and at the ridiculous sale price of $1.49 each plus shipping they are a fantastic buy for those who prefer quality notepads!
It was. I only picked up three of the blue and three of the wine. I was about to get 5 of each, but I started thinking about the fact that I have at least a dozen notebooks sitting around here that I haven't written in yet.
I'll be looking forward to trying it!
