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Help with Stationery and Notebook Recommendations

Heres one I really dont like
Picked up this Mead Cambridge "Premium Paper" at Staples.
The paper is smooth but it sucks the ink out of the pen like crazy..lines are twice as wide as other paper I use, it bleeds through the paper, not only on the back of the page, but there are quite a few dots of ink on the next page!
A very fine nib may work better than the mediums and the one fine that I did try.
A Parker 45 ballpoint wrote on it nicely and a Uniball 207 worked great






The back of a page written with 3 different fountain pens
 
if you want cheap but good local stuff Kev staples has this sustainable earth eco stuff that works great on the cheap
 
Thanks, I saw those there.
This was an impulse buy, I was there picking up something else and thought I would try it.
I get great note pads from work, but they have our company logo/info on them, great for scribbling/testing but not for letter writing etc.
I'll try one of the Sustainable Earth note pads next time I go there.

Thx
 
I just bought a Staples Sustainable Earth Pad, 9.5" / 6" (100 pages), for each of my classes. (I keep a daily journal for each class I teach. This gives me a written recorded of what worked well and what needs improvement on my end as well as the kids' end.) The kids get 5 minutes at the end of each class to sum up their version of the class and what they need to focus on during the next class. This is written in their journals.

The spiral rings are stiff metal. They are going to hold up very well. The notebook will lie flat like a book or lie flat like a pad. Page flip easily and do not catch. I used a broad stub with Noodler's Polar Blue ink for today's entry. The nib and my hand liked the paper. No bleed through but, the blue ink can be seen as a shadow on the reverse side of the page. That's fine with me. I use the right hand sides. The backs are rarely touched. Not bad for $3.79...


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The kids are going to get cheap composition books. (The ubiquitous sewn and taped essay books.) The big challenge for them is holding on to them across the entire school year. :ohmy:
 
+1 to the Sustainable earth pads. They are great for the price. Sure, the paper ghosts somewhat. But for $3.79 to have no feathering or bleed through is fantastic.
 
I just bought a Sigel Conceptum notebook ... the first impressions are positive. I like it somewhat better than the Moleskine notebook.

My other alternative would be a Leuchtturm1917, but I could only buy that online, without seeing and feeling the real thing first.

Edit: I can confirm that the Sigel Conceptum does very well with bleed through ... nothing with my Lamy 2000 (which is a wet writer).

They are slightly more expensive than the Moleskines, but I feel that the better quality justifies the higher price.
 
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I have used the Sigel Conceptum every day now, for a month.

I don't abuse my notebooks, but I am not particularly gentle on them as well.

The Sigel Conceptum holds up great. My only minor complaint is that it is slightly smaller than A4 (it is advertised as such), so that real A4 paper sheets stick out a bit.

Otherwise it is a great companion!
 
Speaking of notebooks, I was in Walmart today to pick up some cheap shipping boxesand saw that they had a boatload of back-to-school supplies. I finally found the Brazilian-made Norcom composition books that I've been hearing about for the past year and picked up a couple. Wow...for 50 cents a piece, they're actually quite nice. 100 pages, wide-ruled, 9 3/4" x 7 1/2", and quite fountain pen friendly! They won't impress your upscale neighbors or land you a promotion at the law firm, but they're damned nice to write on! (If you go looking for them, make sure you get the ones made in Brazil. The rest of the notebooks they have there are crap.)
 
Ampad Gold Fibre @ Staples

I started by finding it on Amazon and the reviews said the quality of paper is not the same. (This was not the notebook but the writing pads)
I then went to Staples and tested a sheet using several pens and they do indeed bleed through. I wish it was not the case cause these were affordable.


On that note, I am still looking for some decent affordable writing pads.

Any ideas?
 
If you are at Staples you might want to wander over to the....hate to write this, but the Martha Stewart Home Office stand. This afternoon I picked up a few A5 notebooks (46 pages). The paper is thin but only has allowed just a small amount of show through. I have tried three different inks and three different nibs with decent success. I see no feathering or spread. Thus far, the paper appears to be a step up from the SE line. Not bad for a locally purchased notebook priced under $5/each.
 
Another vote for Rhodia, truly great and affordable.

Clairfontane is high end and costs more, if I was an author I might go with that. Moleskine isn't dense and fountain pen writing tends to spread too much on it for my preference.
 
If you are at Staples you might want to wander over to the....hate to write this, but the Martha Stewart Home Office stand. This afternoon I picked up a few A5 notebooks (46 pages). The paper is thin but only has allowed just a small amount of show through. I have tried three different inks and three different nibs with decent success. I see no feathering or spread. Thus far, the paper appears to be a step up from the SE line. Not bad for a locally purchased notebook priced under $5/each.

That's a long walk for a notebook lol (and a long swim :wink2: )

(i know that the OP is in the USA, but I could not resist :wink2: )
 
My wife has a notebook with paper made from pulverized construction rock. It's remarkably tough, and resists bleed/ghosting/feathering. The paper feels a bit weird, but it's hard to tear. Lots of companies are popping up offering these. The dry time is a little longer than my Rhodia tablet, but my FPs work remarkably well on it. Plus, it's not made from trees... if that sort of thing matters to you. (Although this process is not free from controversy).
 
My wife has a notebook with paper made from pulverized construction rock. It's remarkably tough, and resists bleed/ghosting/feathering. The paper feels a bit weird, but it's hard to tear. Lots of companies are popping up offering these. The dry time is a little longer than my Rhodia tablet, but my FPs work remarkably well on it. Plus, it's not made from trees... if that sort of thing matters to you. (Although this process is not free from controversy).

That sounds like it's hard on the nibs in the long term, even if the business end of most nibs is made of very hard (iridium and cousins) material.
 
That sounds like it's hard on the nibs in the long term, even if the business end of most nibs is made of very hard (iridium and cousins) material.
I can't really attest to that. I just know that I've never had a problem writing on it. There are no loose fibers to clog the tines. There would need to be a lot more scientific study to compare to some of the better known papers. Microscopes and what-not.
 
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