American, Letter-Sized 3-Ring Binder Paper For Fountain Pens

[AllenMichie]

All of the traditional fountain pen papers are European or Japanese, in the European sizes. I'm looking for recommendations on fountain-pen friendly standard American notebook paper: letter size (8.5"x11"), standard wide ruling, three-hole punched for a standard 3-ring binder. The kind that millions of people use every day for business and school.

This can't be that hard. Has no one tried to market good fountain-pen friendly paper for the huge American market?

Yes, I can get a European notebook, tear out the paper, trim it down with scissors to 8.5 x 11, and use a hole puncher. But it would be nice to just get a stack and go for a change.

Thanks for your help!

[OCArt]

Go to your nearest dollar store and look for papers made in India, Pakistan, or Brazil. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

[LizEF]

Actual 8.5" x 11" loose-leaf, 3-hole, lined paper is almost impossible to find anyway. It's 8" x 10.5" or 7.5" x 10". Apparently, they shrink the "norm" for school paper every decade.

 

Roaring Spring and Mead 5-Star are sometimes OK. Target's in-house brand has sometimes been reported as OK. A lot depends on your pen and ink.

 

Otherwise, as OCArt said, look for paper made in Vietnam. Also, paper with crisp lines / ruling (not fuzzy), where the fibers aren't large and obvious, and where the texture is slick / smooth will increase the probability that it will work well for fountain pens.

[FLZapped]

My wife bought a bunch of Norcom stuff. It's 10.5" x 8" - which is the standard. It out performs my Office Depot "Imageprint" paper made by Dotmar. I think she got it at Wallyworld.

Edited September 26, 2020 by FLZapped

[Astronymus]

Start a revolution and go metric. Problem solved.

[A Smug Dill]

Has no one tried to market good fountain-pen friendly paper for the huge American market?

 

Yes, I can get a European notebook, tear out the paper, trim it down with scissors to 8.5 x 11, and use a hole puncher.

 

Or just buy a quality European notebook that already caters to the odd sizes not commonly used outside Europe.

 

 

Here's an example of a US-based retailer that carries it, and I daresay it is servicing "the huge American market" as a trader. Or should I have interpreted your question as, "Does nobody market produce anything here in the US, in spite of the huge domestic demand for what I want to buy and use, even though the product can't be expected to sell well overseas because it won't conform to international standard sizing?"

 

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation or relationship with Dromgoole's, not even as a customer.

[jonathan7007]

Mead "5-Star Graph-Ruled" has been my go-to stock for minute-to-minute note-taking, collection of info, whatever. I have been buying this for about five, six years. The stock is reinforced down the left edge where the holes are cut through. It's excellent in a lot of ways requiring only an inexpensive 3-inch ring binder to hold an entire year's worth of notes. It is 8.5 x 11 inches in size.

 

I have written here about the product.

 

My most recent re-supply has seemed to feather more than before. I spoke to Customer Service at Mead but they had not been briefed (or heard complaints from anyone else.) The courteous woman I spoke to gave me a different group to which I could write... but I believe they will do what manufacturing costs dictate, not what I want.

 

The amount of feathering is not consistent, of course. Noodler's X-Feather *can* feather on the current stock, if wet enough - my two Iroshizuku colors (tsuki-yo and kon-peki) are doing so a LOT. Interesting: Noodler's Heart of Darkness has NO feathers. I will try another order and perhaps the manufacture moves from plant to plant or country to country.

 

I'm drawing a distinction between feathering and print-through. What is especially different/new in this batch is the feathering.

 

BTW, when I first discovered this paper at a big-box store (I lived in rural Hawaii - I was lucky there was an Office Max an hour's drive away) I bought at the same time two *lined* Mead "filler sets". They were very much less pen-friendly.

 

My notes show that the graph paper is marked "Made in USA". UPC for precise ID: 0-43100-17012-9.

 

If I was going into stores I would check more deeply the options I now have nearby living in urban US. But...

Edited October 28, 2020 by jonathan7007