Southworth Papers Review - Letter sized (8.5" x 11") - US - July 2021

[alexwi]

Papers in this review:

 

• Southworth Wove 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $33.69/500 (Staples.com price) - $0.067/sheet.
• Southworth Premium Inkjet & Laser 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $13.29/250 (Staples.com price) - $0.053/sheet.
• Southworth Laser 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $28.19/500 (Staples.com price) - $0.056/sheet (stay away from this paper).

Trivia

If I understood correctly and the information's still valid, Neenah Papers acquired Southworth's business papers division around 2013. That division's revenue in 2013 was $20 million. Then, in 2017, Southworth went belly up. Based on a bit of snooping (facebook, domain searches, etc.), Neenah seems to be actively maintaining the Southworth brand, so I'm hoping that by the time I run out, I won't have to go crazy looking for a new brand of fountain pen-friendly paper.

 

Neenah makes a plethora of papers available in letter size (Southworht papers are not listed, though) and as little as 5 sheets can be ordered from their web site, but the few I checked run at around $50 for a 500-sheet ream.

 

Pens tested

I tested Aurora Black, Noodlers Turquoise, and an unknown Noodlers that looks like Turquoise with several pens:

- Inoxcrom Prime M (dryish).

- Rosetta Expedition M (very wet).

- Sheaffer Prelude M (wet).

- Sheaffer Javelin M (normal).

- Lamy Safari M (dry).

- Parker 45 M (normal).

- Pilot MR Cursive M (0.9mm) (normal).

 

One pen not included in the photos is a Parker 75 F that I didn't know was inked. This pen wrote and felt good on all three papers.

 

Feel

The "Southworth Laser 24 Lbs" feels especially like (bleep) - I can't make up my mind on whether my nibs feel scratchy or misaligned. I'm mentioning this one first because it's not just a bit worse than the others, it's as if this paper was made by another manufacturer altogether! I have a feeling that this particular paper is older, as it isn't FSC certified and doesn't show up on Southworth's "25% Cotton Business Paper" page (it does appear listed in the "Laser Business Paper," but there's no image for it at the bottom. If I had to take a wild guess, this paper was (or is about to be) replaced by the "Inkjet & Laser" paper.

 

The other two papers felt nice. Nicer than the cheap copy paper I was using before, which was excellent (sorry, no idea what that was), so one of these is definitely going to become my go-to paper for fountain pen use.

 

I think that the Wove paper feels smoother than the "Inkjet & Laser," but the difference, at least with the pens I tested, was minimal, to the point that I would probably fail a blind-test.

 

Keep in mind that, these are nothing like the papers used at pen shops to have people test pens and go "ooooohhh this is sooo smooth!" and sometimes slip and break their wrist on, but they're very nice to write on.

 

Ink
Ink-wise, all three are great, as you can see in the pictures. No feathering or bleeding visible to the naked eye.

 

Since I'm definitely not keeping the "Laser" paper, I didn't test drying times on it.

 

Both Aurora Black and Noodlers Turquoise dry much faster on the Wove paper than on the "Inkjet & Laser:"

10 seconds vs. 16 seconds.

 

Opacity

I found all three papers acceptable in this respect. The Laser seems a bit more opaque than the other two.

 

Conclusion

I think I'm going to keep the Woven and return the other papers, since I don't need 1250 sheets of anything and neither have the room to store them.

 

Update: Upon further testing, I found that the Laser and the Woven papers feel quite different depending on which side one's writing. The Laser continues to be the one I like the least. I'm definitely keeping the "Inkjet & Laser."

 

Alex

 

 

Photos

I resized the photos so they're all as close as possible to 300dpi, except for the textures comparison, which was uploaded in the camera's native resolution.

 

The two texture photos were taken with light coming straight from the left and at a 45 deg. angle from top-left. Unfortunately I didn't make a note of which is which, but they're really to show the papers' texture.

 

Southworth Wove 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $33.69/500 (Staples.com price) - $0.067/sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

Southworth Premium Inkjet & Laser 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $13.29/250 (Staples.com price) - $0.053/sheet.

 

 

 

 

Southworth Laser 24 Lbs / 90 gsm 25% cotton - white - $28.19/500 (Staples.com price) - $0.056/sheet (stay away from this paper).

 

 

 

 

Textures

 

 

 

[LizEF]

Thanks for the review, Alex!  Good to know how these work.

[alexwi]

Hi,

 

I updated the reviews - added opacity of the papers and changed favorite as I found out that these three aren't exactly the same on both sides. I'm now partial to the Inkjet & Laser paper.

 

Alex

 

[Frank C]

Thanks for doing the work and posting the results. I am always looking for fountain-pen-friendly paper.

[miig]

I will be posting about this, too soon. I found a 20 years old stash of Southworth 100% Cotton "Curriculum Vitae Paper".

I wonder how it ended up here, since it seems to be mainly a  US based brand. But it's quite nice actually. Interesting to have paper made out of pure cotton.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'm glad I got mine a long time ago.

 

When I was in the states last, a decade ago, I was looking for fountain pen paper and found only Southworths*** and got a mix of  8-10 100 sheet boxes of 24 and 32 pound papers...All good.

In spite of most being laser and ink jet papers, I didn't notice the compromise.

 

I really should take them down and make three or four paper clipped assortments, and use them instead of medium good papers....They are not my best but of my better quality papers.

 

*** Living in Germany almost everything in the world is there with in two hours driving, much at one hour....

So driving a hour for a pizza is still alien to me. I should have driven two hours to Tyson's Corners, for fountain pens and paper.

 

Driving so slow was dangerous to me, in poking along, made me tired. And cramped up.

Driving at 100mph/160km, is not fast. My old Toyota Corolla cruised at that, with my wife driving. ...not that I was faster.

In the States then you have all the idiots always in one's blind spots.