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It seems Tomoe River has just been discontinued.


Naoki NISHIKAWA

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34 minutes ago, peroride said:

Excellent, this new machinery with similar quality is good news to me!

 

I look forward to getting some of the N designated paper

Me too. :)  Only need to make sure to get rid of my old stuff first :(

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I only disliked how obnoxiously thin the paper was. Made notebooks too light to write double sided.

 

I would have bought their stuff in reams if it was a decent weight.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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Sad news for me :( TR is my favorite paper to draw with.  Any other paper brands like it that someone can suggest? 

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On 5/15/2021 at 2:02 PM, LuxioPens said:

Sad news for me :( TR is my favorite paper to draw with.  Any other paper brands like it that someone can suggest? 

I'm not sure you read the whole thread. They have a new machine and the new paper is very similar. Also, for drawing, my earlier suggestion may be even better. :)

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On 5/10/2021 at 7:48 PM, bunnspecial said:

 

The weight/feel of it is very similar to what I'd call Bible Paper, although in my experience(taking notes on page) many Bibles have "slick" paper that none the less isn't super FP friendly. Since a full Old+New Testament Bible typically runs 1000-1500 pages depending on page, print size, and amount of annotation(I think my own study Bible to 2000 with about an 8pt font on paper that's about 6.5x8.5" and sometimes 3/4 of a page of footnotes). You want a thin paper when dealing with that size book if you intend it to be portable.

 

I seem to recall, though, reading that Tomoe River was meant as a mail advertising paper because it would be inexpensive to mail. That's one of the things that those of who write letters still take advantage of.

 

BTW, I am looking at buying 4000 sheets of it. It can be bought for around $110 using a shipping forwarder, but the one I'm using hasn't actually given me a shipping quote yet. Even with as light as the paper is, 4000 sheets still weighs a lot. If I'm doing my math right, 4000 sheets of A4 should be about 250 m^2, which for a 52gsm paper is about 13kg.

From where you could find Tommoe river sheets at that $110? We can buy it together then. I have a friend living in Japan. He will dispatch your paper too. I am. Also looking to get 4000 sheets of TR. 

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9 hours ago, punjabi said:

From where you could find Tommoe river sheets at that $110?

 

Dunno. ¥10,550 (inc Japanese domestic consumption tax) converts to US$96.61 when I checked just now.

 

Rakuten Ichiba item listing for 4000 A4 sheets of Tomoe River 52gsm paper

 

Not surprisingly, that's the paper stock type designated ‘N’. Reams of the ‘old’ Tomoe River 52g/m² paper in the same quantity are all sold out.

 

340503919_OldTR52gsmpaperinreamsof4000sheetsallsoldout.jpg.e16ca34fb0b0aed894e8aa7282291dec.jpg

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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On 5/18/2021 at 12:06 AM, A Smug Dill said:

 

Dunno. ¥10,550 (inc Japanese domestic consumption tax) converts to US$96.61 when I checked just now.

 

Rakuten Ichiba item listing for 4000 A4 sheets of Tomoe River 52gsm paper

 

Not surprisingly, that's the paper stock type designated ‘N’. Reams of the ‘old’ Tomoe River 52g/m² paper in the same quantity are all sold out.

 

340503919_OldTR52gsmpaperinreamsof4000sheetsallsoldout.jpg.e16ca34fb0b0aed894e8aa7282291dec.jpg

 

 

Since that source does not ship to the US, the price I quoted included the fees for using a package forwarding service. It did not include shipping, which from reading comments from other folks who have done this would be roughly $100.

 

I haven't ordered yet, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to. I like Tomoe River a lot, including the new version(of which I have a couple hundred sheets between A4 and A5 size). 4000 sheets may last me the rest of my life, but considering that 100 packs of A4 in the US are ~$12-15(and probably not going down any time soon), the break-even point even for $200 or so total is not an unrealistic amount.

 

Plus, it would give me the freedom to freely share this excellent paper with others as I saw fit.

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Based on the recent investor announcement from Tomoegawa, it seems the new TR paper too will be discontinued. 

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2 hours ago, CityPop said:

Based on the recent investor announcement from Tomoegawa, it seems the new TR paper too will be discontinued. 

 

Link with date please.

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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2 hours ago, CityPop said:

Based on the recent investor announcement from Tomoegawa, it seems the new TR paper too will be discontinued. 

 

Were you referring to this item in particular?

 

Quote

By the end of FY 2022 — Paper Milling Machine No9. stoppage (projected)

 

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I've searched for and read every announcement made this year. Even after the projection that Paper Milling machine no 9 stops in 2022 Tomoegawa will still have the "new and smaller paper making equipment" that they are going to use to make paper from now on.

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Sorry for the premature conclusion. I was confused regarding Tomoegawa's message. The "new" paper, being produced on the no.9 machine(I am not sure what exactly that means), I assume will be stopped with the shutting down of the machine. Here is my very brief correspondence with Tomoe River on facebook.image.thumb.png.d144fd541d0d5dc0eaa8af05e79905e3.png

So it seems they are attempting to find new ways of creating TR paper. Based on the recent Tokyo Inklings podcast, Tomoegawa is not doing that well financially, and part of their "cost cutting" involves shutting down the #9 machine.

 

Once again, sorry for the confusion, but I assume that the "new" TR paper will also no longer be produced(based on the differences/outcry between old machine and new machine TR paper, there will certainly be new differences with the new machine). Perhaps a "new new" offering of TR paper will be released soon :D 

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If they release paper with the same amazing coating but just make it a tiny bit thicker, I'll start buying it by the REAM.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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31 minutes ago, Honeybadgers said:

If they release paper with the same amazing coating but just make it a tiny bit thicker, I'll start buying it by the REAM.

 

You'd still need to contend with using a forwarding service/agent to get the paper shipped to you from Japan if you buy it by the ream.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Here is the TokyoInklings podcast CityPop mentioned a few posts earlier:

https://tokyoinklings.com/episodes/032/

 

I think the TR part started around 20min ish. But yeah, it seems like TR as we know it may be discontinued, and we'll have to see if in the future a new Tomoe River is started up again by the companies mentioned.

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Thank you very much for the link to the Tokyo Inklings podcast. It seems to be definite, given the documents on Tomoegawa’s website: the machine (#9) making the “new” Tomoe River paper is scheduled to be shut down “later this year” (although it is unclear from the podcast if Tomoegawa means financial year as opposed to calendar year, one of the podcasters was told by Sakae Technical Paper that they had heard that the shutdown was to happen in September 2021).

 

Part of the confusion stems from Sakae’s tweet that several Tomoe River SKUs are to be discontinued because the base paper is no longer made. As per the podcast, that “base paper” refers to the “old” Tomoe River paper, which has not been made since 2019 when that machine (#7) was shut down by Tomoegawa. It turns out that Sakae Technical Paper never used the “new” Tomoe River paper in any of their notebooks, although they may be selling loose leaf “new” Tomoe River paper. (I think SKUs with “new” Tomoe River paper end with a “-N” and the Sakae-branded 50 dot-grid loose sheets of Tomoe River paper that I bought from Amazon in early 2020 has an SKU that does not end in a “-N” meaning it is “old” Tomoe River paper and will soon cease to be available.)

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Based on financial reporting in their investor relations section, Tomoegawa operates on a Fiscal Year that begins April 1 and ends March 31.

 

Shutdown of machine #9 is targeted as "by end of FY 2022."  
 

Note that "by" does not mean "at."  Anytime between April 1 2021 and March 31 2022 meets their target.

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On 5/27/2021 at 1:50 AM, ParkerBeta said:

It turns out that Sakae Technical Paper never used the “new” Tomoe River paper in any of their notebooks, although they may be selling loose leaf “new” Tomoe River paper.

 

It did sell that: https://www.sakaetp.co.jp/pdf/20200915_1.pdf

 

On 5/27/2021 at 1:50 AM, ParkerBeta said:

… Sakae-branded 50 dot-grid loose sheets of Tomoe River paper that I bought from Amazon in early 2020 has an SKU that does not end in a “-N” meaning it is “old” Tomoe River paper … 

 

I don't know of any Sakae TP Tomoe River FP product with a product code that ended in “-N”. N, in the middle of the product code after the sheet size (e.g. TMR-A5NMW), stands for ‘note’ 'Note' in katakana.png and designates a bound notebook product.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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21 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

It did sell that: https://www.sakaetp.co.jp/pdf/20200915_1.pdf

 

 

I don't know of any Sakae TP Tomoe River FP product with a product code that ended in “-N”. N, in the middle of the product code after the sheet size (e.g. TMR-A5NMW), stands for ‘note’ 'Note' in katakana.png and designates a bound notebook product.

Thanks for the link to the Sakae A4 pack of 100 loose-leaf sheets with the label "Limited Edition | New Machinery Papers" on the front.  Very interesting -- my A4 pack of 50 loose-leaf sheets does not have that label on the front and must be the "old" Tomoe River paper (and indeed, I found its SKU in a list of discontinued products that Sakae put out at https://www.sakaetp.co.jp/pdf/20210426.pdf).

 

As for the Sakae TP Tomoe River FP products with product code ending in "-N", that was what I recall from some Sakae tweet or press bulletin (however, the original was in Japanese, and I am quoting from memory from somebody's English translation of it, so I could well be wrong).  Update: I was dimly remembering this post from @Karmachanic from earlier in this same thread: https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/360356-it-seems-tomoe-river-has-just-been-discontinued/?do=findComment&comment=4433235. It contains a link to a Facebook post by "Tomoe River" (presumably Tomoegawa) dated 22 July 2020 which says "products made at the new machinery has suffix -N after the grammage (e.g., -52N)."  I mistakenly assumed that the "-N" comes at the end of the product code.

 

S.T. Dupont Ellipsis 18kt M nib

Opus 88 Flow steel M nib

Waterman Man 100 Patrician Coral Red 18kt factory stub nib

Franklin-Christoph Model 19 with Masuyama 0.7mm steel cursive italic nib

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41 minutes ago, ParkerBeta said:

It contains a link to a Facebook post by "Tomoe River" (presumably Tomoegawa) dated 22 July 2020 which says "products made at the new machinery has suffix -N after the grammage (e.g., -52N).

 

That is corroborated by Musubi's press release from July 2020, but that use of the ‘N’ designation is in Tomoegawa's product codes (for B2B ordering), not Sakae TP's product codes or any other retail product SKU (stock keeping unit).

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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