A few days ago I purchased a quad ruled Ampad Gold Fibre Planning Pad and today put it to the fountain pen test.

The pad comes with a discrete heavy paper cover, a heavy cardboard back and eighty pages of quad paper. I paid $2.99 at Staples for the A4 size. Oddly the front of the paper is quad but the back is lined. I had a minor issue with the paper cover over the binding. It is not sized correctly leaving a messy edge at the top. A quick trim with an Exacto blade cleaned it up nicely.

The paper is not as smooth as the other Gold Fibre 20# lined tablets I have used and definitely is no match for Clairefontaine or Rhodia or even BnR. Not awful but just not good enough. No serious bleed through but there is some ghosting. Nothing major though.

Feathering is the worst issue. Only my Sheaffer Sentinel with a fine Triumph nib and loaded with Diamine Indigo looked acceptably clean. Since that is one of my most frequently used pens, I won't waste this pad.

While the Ampad Gold Fibre Planning Pad will do for casual use, it doesn't meet my standards for presentation. Too much feathering spoilt it for me.


All of the inks in my test were Diamine except the R&K Verdigris.



Here's a magnification that shows the feathering better.

Wow, thanks for the warning. I've had such good luck with other Ampad Gold Fibre products that I might have bought that and been very disappointed :doh:

Bill

Ach! I have one of these, and almost used it yesterday. Thankfully I didn't! Thanks for the great review, Margana!

Wierd. Never had that problem with them at work.

-Bruce

Please name the pens and ink you used Bruce.

I have 4.

A Parker 95, and Inflection. Both fine points. I also have a Parker 45 medium. And a Sheaffer, uhm...oh drat forogt the name, but it is a fine point.

Anway, they either have Noodler's Black or Quink black in them.

Our pads are white paper, not yellow. Don't know if that makes a difference.

-Bruce

Thank you Bruce! Noodler's Black explains why you don't have feathering issues, as Nathan designed it to write on all kinds of paper, even newsprint, without problems.

But I also use Quink black. I'll have to take a closer look next week....but not tomorrow, I have a shower stall project that started out as fixing a leaky faucet and ended up as tear out the wall and replace the whole faucet......BAH!

-Bruce

It has been a long time since I've used Quink Black, so I don't know how it does on low quality paper. Maybe someone will do a review and let us know the characteristics of Quink Black.

I love these pads! The medium weight paper is suprisingly smooth. I have encountered no problems with feathering.

I have used it with the following inks with no issues:

PR velvet black
PR burgundy mist
Waterman Florida Blue
Waterman Blue-Black
Waterman Havana Brown
Quink Blue-Black
Sheaffer Blue
Pilot/Namiki Blue

Can you scan some examples?

I no longer have a few of the inks I listed, but I will scan some samples tomarrow.

Interestingly enough, I purchased one of these pads this morning at WalMart because it was the only Gold Fibre solution that they had, and after taking 90 minutes' worth of notes in a meeting this morning, I didn't notice any significant feathering.

For the record, it was a Lamy Flame, an EF nib, and Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue.

I was actually impressed with the quality, and the smoothness with which it took ink!

Just a stupid question: why is it so common to use yellow paper writing pads in America? Most of us of the other side of the pond use white paper. Is there a reason that can be explained to an ignorant inquisitive mind?

Actually, on impulse I'd purchased this pad (white paper) just a little before this review was posted. I, too, found significant feathering.

Me too....lotsa feathering.

Boy this is a long time coming......we don't have the quad planner, just the regular lined pads. Oddly enough, the small pads (4x6?) act strangly where they are lined. The fountain pen ink tends to feather out where the blue lines are printed. The larger pads, I didn't see this - but they SHOULD be the same....*shrug*

-Bruce

Just picked up a set of AmPad Gold Fiber wide rule 8.5 X 11 for my mother, she swiped my "new" Parker 45 Flighter as soon as she saw it Her old paper bleed through badly and feathered too much.

I see no feathering at all with any of my pens or inks so far. In fact, my Dewen/Noodler's black wrote a bit sparsely on the first page.

Says something for quality crontrol, eh?

There is some shadowing on the back side, but not more than I would expect from any other 20 lb paper -- to get no shadowing, you'll have to use 32 lb at least, the paper doesn't get opaque any lighter than that.

I also got a Staples generic three-subject notebook for a journal, the other one I had bleeds badly and this one doesn't, even with my fairly wet "german iridium" generic pen that gobbles ink.

Peter

Hola Ramon,

I don't know if it's a stupid question, but it's a question I, myself, asked a long time ago. I was told that the tradition of using yellow paper originated many decades ago after research linked certain colors with certain emotional responses. It was (is) believed that yellow stimulates intellectual activity and, as a result of customer requests, paper companies began to make yellow writing pads. These were adopted by lawyers and are now almost universal in the legal profession. Many famous authors, including Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald swore by them and used them exclusively.

That's all I know about it but I would like to know more.

Phil

Well, only half of us. The term "Gold Fibre" is a quality mark for the brand, "Evidence" for the intermediate line, and just plain Ampad for the economy line.

However, most pads (including Gold Fibre) are offered in white and yellow here. The yellow is supposed to be easier on the eyes in a brightly lit room. However, it affects the apparent color of the ink. I avoid it, and always buy white. But some people prefer yellow. Based on quantites in store displays, it must be near 50/50.

I don't know about the history, but there is a practical reason (for me, at least) for using yellow paper writing pads. It might not be a coincidence that Phil mentioned the legal profession using yellow writing pads. I am a lawyer, and my office desk is often piled with documents that are printed on or phptocopied on white paper. Using a yellow writing pad, I can easily find my own handwritten notes amidst the mass of white documents. In general, though, I try to avoid using yellow writing pads, because I prefer white.

Thanks Phil, JohnS-MI and blueiris for your answers. BTW it's amazing of FPN how a question posted exactly two months ago still gets replies!

I see that this yellow paper matter falls into this sort of traditions that consolitate with no apparent reason, just as biological genes express themselves differently in populations that are isolated one from another.

Another similar case that strikes me is that of "blueprints", which were blue some decades ago in America, while I think were not blue at the same time in Europe. Any explanation for this one as well?

Came from the copying process. The original drawing was India ink or dark pencil on white paper or translucent film.

The original copy process was a reversal process (made a negative) and the photosensitive material turned dark blue, so blueprint was a dark blue background with white drawing lines and text. A later process (around 60's or 70's) was positive but still blue, dark blue lines and text on a white (or light blue) background. By then, everyone used pencil, not India ink, so master had less contrast, and contrast setting on machine was a bit fussy.

With full introduction of CAD, of course they are printed directly from computer, black on white. But they will probably always be blueprints here.

Other than the odd notebook with paper in pastel colors, the only yellow pads I can think of here in the US are legal pads, specifically. Most paper is white.

Regarding Gold Fibre products, I like them generally, but have noticed a lot of variability in the paper across the line -- I'm not sure what makes them all "Gold Fibre". Some are coarse and bleedy, others smooth. My favorite is the "Personal Notebook" (#20-802), which I actually use for personal letters. I also use a lot of the "Jr. Legal Pad" (#20-018)... in white .

Brian

I believe the reason is that yellow is (supposedly) easier on the eyes and not as bright as white.

I've been using the Ampad Evidence Dual Pads for a while, and I haven't found any feathering or bleed-through problems yet, even with Aurora Black which is a very wet ink. I used white pads before, but I found the yellow pads more to my liking, as I find it better for the eyes when you're reviewing what you wrote, and much more pleasing to eyes especially with black ink.