I have been looking on the internet to try and find a store that I can walk into and see the Clairfontaine journals and note paper in person. Does anyone know where I can look in NYC?

Playpen,
I can't help you with a brick or mortar store. But I do have a couple of the pads
I can attest to the paper's qualities. It is superb. It would not be a loss to buy sight unseen.

I bought my last pad from Pendemonium. Great service and fast shipping. They have a website online and a store in Iowa. It's the best paper I've found for fountain pens so far! Since you're in New York, you might make a call to Fountain Pen Hospital. I don't know if they sell paper or not, but they handle most everthing else that's pen related. Good luck in your search!

On West 19th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues -- one of the most dangerous blocks in the city -- there is a store called Paper-something (it used to be Paper Access), that has a wide assortment of Clairefontaine notebooks, as well as Letts of London, assorted other brands, and far more paper and stationery than is safe.

It's a dangerous block because it's got that paper store, at least one upscale arts supply store, Books of Wonder (an excellent children's book store), and Academy Music (used and new classical and jazz albums), and another paper store there.

Also, on Sixth Avenue, around 12th Street, there's a store called Stevdan -- or Stevedan -- Stationers, and on Eighth Avenue, around 13th Street, there's a little shop called Typewriters & Things, that has Clairefontaine notebooks and pads, as well as red, black, and blue Pilot Hi-Tec C pens, and Rhodia notebooks and pads.

I also think that I've seen them in Barnes and Noble, but I can't vouch for it.

Many stationary stores carry Clairefontaines in New York City. I get mine (when I used them more . . . now use Moleskines mostly) at the Court Street Stationary Store in Brooklyn Heights, where I live.

Colisseum Books across from Bryant Park carries Clairefontaine and Rhodia pads.

I believe Art Brown--great pen shop--on W. 46th and Fifth Ave has them as well.

Adding to the list: Pearl Paint on Canal Street has a nice selection too, 10% off if you're a teacher or student.

Thank you all for the info. Brooklyn Heights eh? I used to live at 160 Columbia Heights! I loved living there. I recently saw the very same apartment in the real estate section of the newspaper for around $600,000....one zillion times what it was worth back then...

There are two stationary stores on Madison Ave in the upper 80s (Venture and some other one with a weird name) that carry a wide selection of Rhodia and Clairefontaine.

Art Brown at 46th st between 5th and 6th ave also carries a selection of these brands.

Kate's Paperie, at several locations, carries a limited selection. Lee's Art Shop at 57th between broadway and 7th has a limited selection as well.

I joke that I live in the one ghetto building in Brooklyn Heights. I am a lowly playwright/temp who got lucky and fell into a relationship with a guy who had this apartment for a long time and the rent was very low. When we split up recently, he wanted to move out, so I kept the apartment. I'm on Hicks between Atlantic and State. It's technically the Heights, but I feel more kinship with Cobble Hill across the street.

I wish Tulsa, Oklahoma had two or three good pen and stationery stores.

You can go to the Exaclair website, click on the "Where to buy" doodad on the left, put in your zipcode, and it'll show you all the stores that carry whatever Exaclair brand you seek. It's how I discovered Rhodia.

There use to be one maybe two of them back in the 1940s. My father bought a really nice Parker 51 as a birthday gift for a lady he was dating in World War II. I remember him telling me that it was downtown and they had a great selection of writing instruments. Anyone remember the name?

You would think that with the interest in Route 66, someone would open a new pen and stationary store in Tulsa and capitalize on the nostalgia of selling new and vintage pens in that city?

There only seem to be fountain pen stores in cities with a lot of stuck up over-educated people. New York City is the fountain pen capital of the United States. Washtingon DC also has fountain pen stores.

If you've not used Clairefontaine paper before, maybe you can tell us what you think when you get some. Its one of my favorite papers.

Stuck up AND over educated? How about over educated and not stuck up..or just stuck up..or just over educated...what's over educated anyway? is it possible to live in n.y. and not be either..please hurry with the answer...i'm getting worried here...

I live in the city and I'm no way over-educated nor stuckup (at least I hope I'm not). Do people see NYers as those rich upscale people who live in posh upper east side? I always wonder how the rest of US envisions NYC

Well, for certain values of "over-educated" and "stuck-up," you may be right. To me, those values look more like "people who know what they want to sell and buy."

I don't get the over-educated thing either. How can someone be too educated?

But stuck up? There are stuck up people everywhere you go. New York doesn't have a monopoly on that.

I like Clairefontaine Triomphe stationery, and buy mine online from Pendemonium. I also like the G.Lalo/Verge de France correspondence cards for short notes. I can get Crane paper here if I want to drive ten miles over to North Park, but I don't like it as well as the Clairefontaine, and who wants to burn the gas now anyway. I only do it when I feel like I need to do some penance: anyone who has ever made a 20-mile round trip on Northwest Highway will understand the feeling.

The rest of this is all totally OT.

The sweatshirt my wife bought me for Christmas advises oncoming traffic that the wearer is "Dangerously overeducated." But I live in Mesquite, Texas, where all of us have self-images that are definitely modest. Except for the bull riders at the Mesquite Championship Rodeo, and even they admit that a good bull is liable to have a bigger ego than theirs even on the bull's bad days. And a good bull never has a bad day.

In my opinion, the presence of pen shops has more to do with the availability of affluent people than it does with the presence of mass numbers of educated, stuck-up folks.

As to New Yorkers: No comment on travelling New Yorkers who want to tell the locals how they do things in New York, as if our way makes no sense.
I will say that on their home ground I have always found them to be (mostly) friendly and (mostly) polite, but of course anywhere you go if you are expecting to find jerks you will find them. Even in Mesquite, Texas.

I think several years back the world was able to witness the unstuckupedness (pardon the poetic license here) of New YAWKAHS and their tremendous unsnobbiness. Nuff said...

Yes, there are people in middle America who wouldn't buy a $300 pen because they need that money to pay the rent.

Click this link to see what cities people are looking for fountain pens in:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=fountain+pen

Amazingly enough, there are people like that in New York too.

There is a store on SixthAvenue the East side between 10th and 8th. They have Rhodia, Moleskine and Miguelrius also.

According to the graph it appears people from Washington D.C., who speak english and are transplanted in Singapore are the worst.

Rick

I have used and LOVE the Clairefontaine paper! It's fabulous

I love Clairefontaine paper -- and Rhodia too! I live in Washington DC and am able to buy both brands at an independent bookstore, Politics and Prose, that's only two blocks from my apartment! Although I work in Silver Spring, MD, I'm able to find both brands at Fahrney's Pens, which is only two blocks from my agency's headquarters in downtown DC.

As for stuck up and over-educated.... I have a bachelor's degree from a fine university located in a small town in the south. I will confess, however, that I love NYC. I'm not into the high end restaurants or the Broadway shows. I simply love the fact that in a truly LARGE city, you can find nearly anything you seek, and much of it is provided by small businesses. NYC has lots of shops that sell Clairefontaine and Rhodia because the big office supply chains like Staples and Office Depot have not yet conquered the small shop owners. And the reason for that is quite simple -- New Yorkers don't own cars, so they actually patronize small shops within walking distance instead of driving out to the mall to do their shopping. Think about it.

There truly is only one perfect spot with every type of pad:

The Daily Planner
43 West 33rd Street
3rd Floor
New York, New York 10001

1 (800) 635 4321
212-664-0780
212-664-8034 Fax
http://www.TheDailyPlanner.com

No affiliation - just a happy customer

I love New York City!

I wish Dallas, Texas had one!!! We have one Paradise Pens and that's it. Haven't found a decent stationers yet, but I've only lived here 16 months.

Donnie

Hey, some of us are over-educated and yet still need the $300 to pay the rent. A $300 pen would be a rare indulgence for me indeed, and yet I think I can appreciate its worth. I guess the problem there is that I'm still in the midst of obtaining my excess of education. When the JD is done, I hope to start on the PhD...

On Clairefontaine, I think even if I had a reliable brick-and-mortar source I'd order it from Pendemonium. There's just something so delightful about a vintage pen shop in Iowa, and their service and packaging is so wonderful that receiving a package from them is always a delight.

To go even further off-topic, last Christmas my box from them went awry--going to my previous address instead of my new one. I was alerted when I received an e-mail invoice and gave them a call. They imediately sent out an entirely new order that arrived even before the first order arrived at the old house. That is when I became a customer for life.

Snowdrift, good story. I have ordered from them online but twice (D.C. shows) I have admired their display yet not bought for one simple reason. At shows or displays of this nature, I am more comfortable when prices are clearly marked on items. Especially at shows, when cash is a problem (as it was at this past show for so many people who attempted to access the ATM's and could not) it is nice to be able to figure out how much you are going to spend before you hand your order to the salesperson.
I can easily run up a huge bill without even realizing it (ever nickel and dime yourself right over the edge?) and it's nice to be able to know exactly what you have in your hands.
Every time I have seen and admired their display and asked about the prices, it's been the same story.....I am told that yes, they know the prices. Indeed, they do know their prices.

And then there are people who voluntarily register to participate in web sites devoted to fountain pens. 100% complete losers every single one. Oh that would include Half Sigma, so that can't be true and is a waste of time saying.

What else posted in this thread is lacking any value? I wonder? Could it be...?

BTW When is 'enough' as far as education goes? Is there some point where there is nothing more worth learning? After that point what does one do? Start lecturing others on obvious facts like some people have more money than other people? Start grouping millions of people living in a geographical area into a single amorphous mass as though the groups represents an undifferentiated single 'type'? When is the magic point between 'too little' and 'too much' education reached? Please enlighten us, oh wise one.

PS If you think people are doing it tough in middle America imagine what it's like for people in truly poor countries who only wish they could have access to the interweb so they too could insult people who have a little (or a lot) more money than them. Do you think they would see 'middle America' and NYC as different and distinct or as a single group with a single set of beliefs and preferences? Those with any insight at all wouldn't assume to pronounce on what 200+ million people are like. If only that had your ability to see through the complexity to identify 'too much education' as the problem needing solving.

Great customer service story.

Warms the heart to know this sort of stuff still goes on in this mean old world of ours.

Excellent stuff!

Is it too much to wish that Clairefontaine came in notebook filler paper? I'm using some filler paper right now that's the pits. Not sure how long I've had it nor where it came from. If I weren't trying to live cheaper and with less waste, I'd chuck the rest of it into a recycle bin.