Pelikan Collegeblock A4 90 g/m²

[Azulado]

A few months ago, looking for paper on Ebay, I saw a Pelikan notebook that surprised me. I did not know that this brand sold paper, no one had talked about these notebooks in specialized forums or Youtube channels. Despite this, I decided to give it a try and ordered two notebooks.
As soon as I received them, I saw that they were premium quality paper. The first tests were very successful. No feathering or ghosting.
The bleed resistance is very high, I ran some tweezers with ink and nothing leaked through to the other side.
The paper is smooth and not very glossy. When writing, the lines are finer than on other papers of poorer quality. In that sense it looks like Rhodia. The dry nibs leave less ink than on other papers and their feedback is increased, without being unpleasant. The wetter the better. The glide improves, but control is always optimal. It is not a paper for lovers of buttery feel.
On the other hand, it favors shading and the colors are luminous, but less so than the Rhodia.
Perhaps Pelikan markets these notebooks in small quantities and that is why they are little known. I asked on several German Youtube channels. One youtuber told me he did not know them. There was no comment.
You might think that it is a notebook designed for school children, as Pelikan works that market, but the look of the notebook and the quality of the paper makes me think that this is not the target customer. In my opinion, it is not the best notebook for the typical royal blue inks with M nibs. I was surprised that the Pelikan Twist had a simply acceptable performance, it is a pen that writes very well on any paper. The Lamy Nexx B with Pilot Blue ink does great. Or the Kaweco Perkeo M with Rohrer & Klingner blau permanent. It feels best with thick, wet nibs.

 

 

[txomsy]

Do keep in mind that student paper (for writing) in Europe seems to be (from the comments I see) usually very FP friendly and good quality. At least, around here, I commonly see Oxford, Rhodia, Clairefontaine and other quality paper brands sold as notebooks for primary college students in most places, including large surfaces, and usually at really affordable prices. Last summer I saw the same in Paris and Porto, and when I was in Venice a few years back. Generally, school children are still expected to write a lot all over Europe, and there is a large demand for quality paper. Yesterday only, I was surprised when I saw one of my students taking notes on a Paperblanks notebook.

 

Of course, loose printer paper is getting as bad here as anywhere else, but it is still possible to ask for note-taking paper (not for printer) reams, though the default is nasty printer/copy paper that is too absorbent and/or feels waxy.

[Mercian]

23 hours ago, Azulado said:

You might think that it is a notebook designed for school children…

Well, given that its product name is “Schulblock” (or, in English, “School pad”) and that Pelikan’s website lists it under the category ‘School generic’ - linky - yes 😀

 

That said, it certainly looks as though the paper is of high enough quality to use it at university or in a ‘work’ environment.

So, thank you for bringing it to my attention 👍

 

Please will you let us know how wide the line-ruling is?

E.g. is it 7mm? 8mm?

Oh, and also please the width of the margins that are printed on the sides of the pages.

 

Slàinte,

M.

[Azulado]

3 hours ago, Mercian said:

Please will you let us know how wide the line-ruling is?

E.g. is it 7mm? 8mm?

Oh, and also please the width of the margins that are printed on the sides of the pages.

It has 9 mm spacing between horizontal lines . The left margin is 29 mm and the right margin, 25 mm.

3 hours ago, Mercian said:

That said, it certainly looks as though the paper is of high enough quality to use it at university or in a ‘work’ environment.

So, thank you for bringing it to my attention 👍

Since I started writing on this paper, I felt that it could be good for many fountain pen enthusiasts.  I hope you like it. 🙂

[Azulado]

4 hours ago, txomsy said:

Do keep in mind that student paper (for writing) in Europe seems to be (from the comments I see) usually very FP friendly and good quality. At least, around here, I commonly see Oxford, Rhodia, Clairefontaine and other quality paper brands sold as notebooks for primary college students in most places, including large surfaces, and usually at really affordable prices. Last summer I saw the same in Paris and Porto, and when I was in Venice a few years back. Generally, school children are still expected to write a lot all over Europe, and there is a large demand for quality paper. Yesterday only, I was surprised when I saw one of my students taking notes on a Paperblanks notebook.

 

Of course, loose printer paper is getting as bad here as anywhere else, but it is still possible to ask for note-taking paper (not for printer) reams, though the default is nasty printer/copy paper that is too absorbent and/or feels waxy.

In Spain we had excellent paper from the Galgo brand. In recent years, its quality deteriorated as the company changed ownership. This was probably influenced by the fact that, in general, the paper lost quality because more and more people stopped using fountain pens.
About 10 years ago, fountain pens made a comeback and became fashionable, at least for a minority. I think that has influenced the increased supply of fountain pen friendly paper.
In Spain, besides Rhodia, Oxford, Muji or Clairefontaine, you can find national brands like Cervantes and Miquel Rius.
I currently live in Brazil. Most of the paper is unsuitable for fountain pen writing, although Tilibra, a national brand, recently launched an acceptable notebook and Canson Brazil sells a notebook exclusively for the country that is not bad (its flaw is that it does not resist bleeding well).
I think Germany is a case apart. It is probably the only country where children write with fountain pens. I suspect there are many national brands that produce quality paper. I have seen notebooks on Ebay and will be buying them bit by bit to try them out.

 

[InesF]

On 3/23/2022 at 7:45 PM, Azulado said:

You might think that it is a notebook designed for school children, as Pelikan works that market, but the look of the notebook and the quality of the paper makes me think that this is not the target customer. In my opinion, it is not the best notebook for the typical royal blue inks with M nibs.

Exactly that, @Azulado.

Paper for school and for students is among the most fountain pen friendly you can get for low budget - at least here in Austria! Almost all scholars (and even some students) use fountain pens for their notes.

 

When I need paper of excellent quality, I often pull out sheets from bound school notebooks (the book is A4, the paper is A3 size), like I did in this thread, for example.

 

But be aware, the square grid and the lined paper ist excellent, the blanc paper types are of secondary quality! Don't ask me why.

[Azulado]

On 5/4/2022 at 11:13 AM, InesF said:

When I need paper of excellent quality, I often pull out sheets from bound school notebooks (the book is A4, the paper is A3 size), like I did in this thread, for example.

 

But be aware, the square grid and the lined paper ist excellent, the blanc paper types are of secondary quality! Don't ask me why.

I like the lined notebooks. The sheet in the picture looks good, what is the grammage and the brand? I'm going to look on Ebay, I'm interested in those papers.
By the way, regarding the thread about initial saturation, some of my pens have that problem to a greater or lesser extent. The Kaweco Sport is one of the problematic ones, although it never dries out. Only the Parker Sonnet has ever dried out.
A simple solution is to wipe some toilet paper to absorb the ink from the tip.

 

[InesF]

19 hours ago, Azulado said:

The sheet in the picture looks good, what is the grammage and the brand? I'm going to look on Ebay, I'm interested in those papers.

In my region, the dominant brand for school notebooks are: Pelikan, Faber-Castell, Ursus and Staufen. They are so similar, a blind test will fail to differentiate between them. There are other brands with lower market share, like Libro, Pagro and Kyome which are produced and sold especially for some market chains. I think, also those are not different, besides marketing.

All of them are either 70 or 80 gsm. In the example I used Kyome 70 gsm (50 sheets A4 for 1.19 €).

 

And as told before, the blanc paper is not that good. However, the Kyome 70 gsm blanc does fine for with inks.

 

19 hours ago, Azulado said:

The Kaweco Sport is one of the problematic ones, although it never dries out. Only the Parker Sonnet has ever dried out.
A simple solution is to wipe some toilet paper to absorb the ink from the tip.

The Pelikan paper can deal with inks with lower surface tension - in a way, feathering is still no problem.

If you like to go experimental, try deAtramentis Black-Blue or Nightblue (Sherlock Holmes). In the middle of surface tension are inks like R&K Isatis, Diamine Sargasso Se or Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire. In the high surface tension range (and more pale colour, but better compatibility with wet pens and low quality paper) are inks like Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, R&K Royal Blue or both Waterman Blues: Serenity and Mysterious.

 

You may not always be able to choose the writing paper, but you can combine high surface tension inks with wet writing pens and low surface tension inks with EF nibs or dry writing pens. Decrease the failure rate to an unavoidable minimum.

[Azulado]

On 5/6/2022 at 9:27 AM, InesF said:

In my region, the dominant brand for school notebooks are: Pelikan, Faber-Castell, Ursus and Staufen. They are so similar, a blind test will fail to differentiate between them. There are other brands with lower market share, like Libro, Pagro and Kyome which are produced and sold especially for some market chains. I think, also those are not different, besides marketing.

All of them are either 70 or 80 gsm. In the example I used Kyome 70 gsm (50 sheets A4 for 1.19 €).

 

And as told before, the blanc paper is not that good. However, the Kyome 70 gsm blanc does fine for with inks.

 

I have seen the Staufen, they have a great variety. I like the Pelikan paper very much, but, as with almost all papers, the surface is not homogeneous. There are small areas where the writing changes. On the other hand, the reverse side usually provides a better writing experience. This is also true of the Rhodia, although less pronounced.

 

On 5/6/2022 at 9:27 AM, InesF said:

The Pelikan paper can deal with inks with lower surface tension - in a way, feathering is still no problem.

If you like to go experimental, try deAtramentis Black-Blue or Nightblue (Sherlock Holmes). In the middle of surface tension are inks like R&K Isatis, Diamine Sargasso Se or Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire. In the high surface tension range (and more pale colour, but better compatibility with wet pens and low quality paper) are inks like Pelikan 4001 Royal Blue, R&K Royal Blue or both Waterman Blues: Serenity and Mysterious.

 

You may not always be able to choose the writing paper, but you can combine high surface tension inks with wet writing pens and low surface tension inks with EF nibs or dry writing pens. Decrease the failure rate to an unavoidable minimum.

 

Doing a search on Google Scholar, I found your article. I will read it carefully to get a good understanding. I assume the Waterman inspired Blue is the same as the Serenity Blue. In my case, it performs fabulously in all my pens. My problem is the F and EF nibs. Pelikan 4001 blue royal ink is unsuitable for them. I wrote with a Kaweco EF in Rhodia and after a few weeks the writing is almost illegible.
The Kaweco Blue ink solves these problems, with the EFs it performs excellently. It is one of my favorites. I also really like Rohrer & Klingner blau permanent, it works well in all my pens.
It's hard to find academic articles on the paper. It is a subject that interests me. It seems no one in the industry is fond of the pens and posts comments on blogs.

 

[txomsy]

Maybe you should look at patent applications instead.

 

Industry may not be so eager to share their advancements in paper making as to protect them with patents. So, maybe you can find the information you seek there more easily.

[Azulado]

Thanks for your suggestion, @txomsy ! I had already done searches on fountain pen patents, but it hadn't occurred to me to investigate that option with paper.
Once, in a YouTube thread, a person who had worked decades in a paper mill answered some question for me. This is valuable information. But it is also possible to find them on FPN itself, but you have to be patient.

[txomsy]

You're mostly welcome!

[Azulado]

38 minutes ago, txomsy said:

You're mostly welcome!

I copied the wrong text! 😄