Germany, Aldi Good Paper Sale Rex/zebra

[Bo Bo Olson]

I live in Germany and Aldi is our biggest discounter.

They had a yearly sale...and paper was this weeks sales point.

 

I am a paper noobie. I have some sheets of other papers, but am saving them for a later project of 15 papers, 15 nibs and flexes and 15 inks.

Suddenly I have 'good' paper cheap.

It may be I got what I paid for.

 

Rex Office.....is made by Zebra paper (German made).

€ 1.99 60-75 sheets a package.

 

Test Inks; what I had in rotation.

MB Winter Green in semi-flex F

and maxi-semi-flex/flexi OF.

De Atramentis moss green (spring green) KM (normally wet writer, but this ink makes it dry. Ah Ha...too little ink in the pen; when I hit the reserve tank it worked like I knew. So many small things. a day late.)

and a '90 Regular M.

 

D-A Bordeaux red nail F.

D-A royal blue (my newest ink so in the most pens) maxi-semi-flex EF.

D-A "" semi-flex medium fine

D-A "" springy BB.

Lamy Violet cursive Italic nail (looks good on all 4 papers).

Lamy Blue broad nib.

Pelikan black stiff regular nib.

Vintage Pelikan Silver Gray regular M. This one re-hydrated fine.

Watery vintage Pelikan gray regular M....cartridge was very dried up...could be I put too much water in it.

MB Sienna regular flex vintage F.

MB Sienna KOB semi-flex.

Pelikan Brown broad nail.

 

 

 

I am using a 2.8/7D/250 magnifying glass.

 

 

Linen paper 60 sheets 120 Gs/m..Drys fast....Some feel to the paper but writes 'smoothly', a nice feel. There was some feathering, and less shading than I expected. With out a magnifying glass looks ok. Best inks for shading MB Sienna.

De Atramentis Royal Blue looks ok in narrow nibs if they are not pushed in the flex. When flexed is some feathering. Some bleed through with MB Winter Green, when playing with flex.

 

 

All three of the following; I wrote; MB Winter Forest Semi-flex F, and the M smeared (4-5 seconds)... I'm not testing it hard yet...

 

Geripptes papier 60 sheets, 90 gs/m, fine rippung. (laid????)

Not sure exactly what that is supposed to be.

Sort of a rough feeling surface, that is easy to write with...seems to make the nibs write narrow. There is some feathering.

MB Winter Green and MB Sienna both shade well.This time it was D-A Moss green that bled through.

 

Marmorpapier, 60 sheets, 90 gs/m very nice looking mottled green.

So nice to write on....smooth...no bleed through.

Some feathering with MB Winter Green, D-A Moss Green. D-A Royal Blue in EF and M-F nib was good, as long as one lets it dry...if one moves it too fast to the next paper it will smear. D-A Moss Green did shade well. MB Sienna shaded very well in vintage regular flex F and KOB.

 

Butten-/Hammerschlagpapier 75 sheets 90 gs/m, another joy to write on... Again D-A Moss Green bled through along with heavy flexing using MB Winter Forest.

MB Winter Forest looks good..I've seen it shade a bit better but writes well. MB Sienna shades well in both regular vintage F and semi-flex KOB. D-A Moss green shades well

D-A Royal Blue in semi-flex M-F or maxi-semi-flex/'flexi' EF nibs is nice, but not a lot of shading.

 

I like all the papers...and are good papers to 'learn' how to grade paper. I have other papers, Strathmore 100%, old Eaton 25% some old Bank/Post from Zander,; a fine selection of new Zander and Scholenhammer, along with some good Spanish paper some sent me. They are not enough to waste outside the Stathmore and these new Zebra papers, in I need them to have samples for when I do drag 15 inks across 15 papers, and use 15 assorted nibs. One color per page, to see what ink dances with what pen, on what paper.

Eventually, I'll do a German paper test, vs also the top four French and the good Spanish that I have. Then I'll know what I want to buy, for me...and what paper does well with what nibs and inks.

This has opened my eyes to the importance of paper to judging inks and pens.

So much for simple....one paper will not do it all, there will be other papers that do this or that better with an odd nib and ink.

One has not come to the end of the forest; just a meadow.

 

As I saw here, certain inks did well, others did not, either through wrong nib and flex, or wrong paper.

 

I need to find a nib that works well with my Pelikan Black. It was one ink/nib, that none of the papers showed it something to write home about.

I did like the vintage re-hydrated cartridge Pelikan Silver Grey. It had some nice shading. It could really dance if I had enough to find the perfect nib for it. I have become aware of gray as a color, and will be buying some soon.

 

Lamy Violet with a Pendleton Brown Cursive Italic Medium Broad point did well on all four sheets of paper. Shading was most on the Blutten/Hammerschlag paper. It did shade on all papers but not as much as a few other inks.

 

Lamy Blue broad, and Pelikan Brown broad, both wrote well. Shading was there when one looked at it hard. Lamy Blue shaded a tad more. Blutten, Marmor and Linen were ok in that order. Geripptes (laid?) showed nothing special with these two inks.

 

With what nib width and flex, on what paper does ink dance.

Ya, back in the old days, one had it easy, all one had to search for was something easy; the holy grail.

 

 

 

 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

A 250 sheet ream of 10 colors each 25 sheets, 80 gs/m that I've not yet tried out.€ 2.99. I don't expect the world.

 

I also bought some sort of fancy resister spiral block, with little squares, so I have no more excuses not to write with a dip pen....

It has all sorts of little plastic sheets one can place inside...some how, and a neat elastic band....ok so I was living in the stone age, and everyone has been running around with bronze age folders.

well it looks more complicated than standing up and walking over to change the channels on a TV set.

I obviously needed that ....I could have gotten a real small cheap flat one....but I was in a buy rush. €3.99

 

And a nice looking multifunktionsmappe (notice it is one word in German....they take half a sentence and shrinkwrap it into one word....so you have to read slow and divide the word out into the four, five or six words. An organizer with with six folders, two net folders with zipper, three pen holders and a 30 page A-4 writing block. Nice looking cloth edged plastic.

Perfect for my haversack if I go out walking and decide to sit and write.

For €5.99 a good buy for a 'noobie'.

Edited October 6, 2011 by Bo Bo Olson

[atypical]

They had 4.99€ fountain pens last year. Senator brand if I remember correctly. My wife bought one. Not bad at all.

I wanted to buy a few more but, as usual, they didn't have any left when I finally managed to get to an Aldi.

[Essensia]

Very interesting. We have Aldi stores here in the states, too. Will check for paper next time I'm near one.

[Bo Bo Olson]

It was this weeks sale. I don't know if they do the same sale world wide .

I doubt if it will be on sale, in it is A4 paper, and not US letter or legal.

I don't know how much A4 paper is sold in the US.

[Essensia]

Ah, good point, Bo Bo. I didn't think about the difference in paper size.

[ylw]

The Aldi offers only apply to a certain region. I believe they divided Germany into 2: north & south. Most of the time the offers will be in 1 part first and after 2 weeks in the other part. It even crosses over to other countries such as the Netherlands. We've had quite some offers that started in Germany north, then south, then the Netherlands, then Belgium. Unfortunately this does not apply to all of the offers and all of the products. Best place to look would be the Aldi website, keep an eye on that.