Work in progress: paper "quality" grouping

[Claes]

Hi all,

 

For some experiments I'd like to assign certain commonly available paper qualities into rough groups, for instance like this:

•     Terrible Quality Paper: Absorbent paper
•     Common Quality Paper ("normal paper"): 80gsm office printer paper
•     Good Quality Paper: Clairefontaine Triomphe, Clairefontaine Notemaker, Oxford Optik
•     Top Quality Paper: Tomoe River, Iroful, Rhodia 80gsm white, Kokuyo Campus, Apica, MD

Do you roughly agree with me regarding what put into the different groups? Actually, only one example per group is needed.

 

Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden

 

[LizEF]

All of my comments are US-centric, since that's where I live.  My understanding is that Japan and Europe (and perhaps some other locations, and/or perhaps only a sub-set of Europe) have a better selection of FP-friendly paper.

 

Yes, these seem like reasonable groupings, but note that there could be some overlap, so you'll have to decide where to put things.  For example:

• Office printer paper can be terrible quality paper that is very absorbent and prone to bleeding and feathering.
• Common paper can also include cheap notebooks, loose-leaf paper used by students, and legal pads (fairly common in many offices, not just lawyers' offices).
• I think you'll have a hard time separating between your "Good Quality" and "Top Quality".  What criteria will you use?  Your grouping and the difference seems very subjective to me (whereas terrible and common can be more objective).  For example: Triomphe seems to me as high quality as Iroful, if different.  Oxford Optik and Rhodia 80gsm white seem equivalent in quality to me (though perhaps only older Rhodia pads - there's a lot of talk that Rhodia's quality was reduced in recent years).  I've frequently read that some people think Apica is not so hot (and the Apica notebooks I have threaten to bleed even with fine nibs).  Midori MD seems universally loved, though.

On 6/21/2024 at 7:51 AM, Claes said:

Actually, only one example per group is needed.

I completely disagree with that, though I guess it depends on your goals.  Tomoe River (current, 52gsm) is very different from its 68gsm sibling, and a lot different from Iroful and all that is very different from Midori MD - in significant ways, to my mind.

 

When it comes to the "terrible" and "common" groupings, fewer examples are needed because terrible is terrible and three more feathers, or slightly longer feathers doesn't really make something more terrible.  Also, the papers in these groupings are less consistent from batch to batch, so really, just use the worst examples you can find and call it "representative" and "results may vary"...

 

But the really good papers should be consistent from batch to batch year after year.  IMO, that's one of the things that makes them good papers.

 

Perhaps @arcfide, our resident expert on paper, might have some helpful thoughts.

[Mercian]

Input from ‘Professor Quibble’:

 

Personally, I have found Oxford ‘Optik’ paper to be better than Rhodia 80gsm white paper.
Both are papers that have hard-&-smooth coatings, but the ‘Optik’ is more-consistent in my experience (although I do recognise that other people may well have had experiences that are completely opposite to mine).

 

I’d also go so far as to say that ‘best’ is a very subjective term.

 

I love my coated papers, but some of the most ‘fountain-pen friendly’ papers that I have are ‘vintage’ un-coated papers from the 1970s/1980s (maybe earlier).

 

Hard-coated papers are great if one desires shading, but un-coated (and therefore more-absorbent) papers can be ‘better’ if one prefers fast drying times, or if one actually dislikes shading.

 

Also, should anyone happen to have a superfluous pad of ‘Churston Deckle’ (with matching envelopes) taking-up space in their home, I would be very happy to receive it, and to then share my ‘considered opinion’ of it with the group 😉

 

Slàinte,
M.

[arcfide]

Unfortunately, there's no way to map paper quality to a single dimension as you are trying to do, even for low quality paper. 

 

I think the author at Fountain Pen Love (fountainpenlove.com) has one of the better and more objective grading system for paper, but his system weights various things equally in the final score, and the final score is the least valuable thing among that system. It's the four or five dimensions of quality that matter more. 

 

To all this we must also add that not all paper is equally suited to all environments. Many papers behave surprising differently depending on the relative humidity of the environment in which they are stored and used. Some papers are much more resistant to problems of humid air, but might not impress as much in dry climates, while some papers are superb in dry climates, but might fall apart quickly under excess moisture. 

 

It's also true that many paper brands have a wide range of papers and each needs to be considered separately. 

 

You'll need to first nail down what you care most about in papers, and then recognize that such a dimension with bias heavily against some papers that are very good. 

 

Just as an example of Japanese papers, you can see my test of Japanese papers and the various nuances that go into them: 

 

 

So, I'm afraid that "quality" really doesn't match up very well as a word for the various multidimensional aspects of paper. 

 

Just to give a *really* extreme example: say that we have someone who needs fast drying, bold color, archival quality, and needs to be able to use super smooth nibs because of his writing angle or preference for fast writing? In such a case, you might actually recommend a combination of traditional inks and absorbent, but heavyweight papers that are archival rated. These papers might be apt to bleed and feather in other situations, but with traditional, drier inks, combined with the possibly over polished smooth nib and a fast writer, the results will be a deeper, more saturated color, faster dry times, and less likely to suffer baby's bottom issues for a pen that is a little too smoothed. Such a paper *might* be considered "low quality" by people chasing what something like Iroful or Clairefontaine Triomphe can give you, but might be the best paper around for what he's looking for, and will have the objective qualities that are much better fits. An example of such paper might be the Strathmore Writing Paper, which is 25% cotton, archival, but very absorbent and can bleed if not used with the right inks. However, the slight roughly texture will help with nibs that have a tendency to hard start. It might not be heavy enough for some applications, but in that case, you might use a 32lb. 100% cotton paper from the same company, and get something that works quite well. Such papers would be completely unimpressive to some people who chase shading and sheen, but utterly perfect for others. It *is* quality paper, consistently made, and of good materials, but it does not handle ink in the way that some people will want. 

 

 

[LizEF]

Thank you, @arcfide!  I knew you would have helpful input for this thread.

[Karmachanic]

10 hours ago, Mercian said:

Hard-coated papers are great

 

Writing paper is sized.   Coated vs Uncoated paper. "Note that it’s more difficult to use a pen or pencil to write on coated paper."

[Claes]

Thank you @LizEF for adding @arcfide into this.

 

It is on purpose that I am describing this Work in Progress in very very vague terms.

Trying to simplify matters one step further:

 

To ordinary people: what would be today's "normal", "basic", "standard" kind of paper?
My hunch is common office copier/printer paper, 80 GSM or so.

Agree?

[LizEF]

4 hours ago, Claes said:

To ordinary people:

IMO, ordinary people could not care less.  They use whatever ballpoint and paper the office gives them and don't think once, let alone twice about either.  They can't remember the last time the bought a pen, and just pick one up wherever they happen to find one lying around and don't think twice if where they found it was someone else's desk or counter.

[Claes]

>IMO, ordinary people could not care less.

 

I fully agree.

 

Luckily there are a few exceptions, like a local pal of mine.

One of his tasks is to grade university student assigments,

being printed/copied onto the cheapest office copier paper

available at the Uni. Since my pal is a fountain pen user, we

started to discuss suitability of different ink/nib/paper combos.

That's what I presently am playing with.

[LizEF]

45 minutes ago, Claes said:

One of his tasks is to grade university student assigments,

being printed/copied onto the cheapest office copier paper

available at the Uni. Since my pal is a fountain pen user, we

started to discuss suitability of different ink/nib/paper combos.

That's what I presently am playing with.

 

Ah.  In this case, better to focus on the ink and nib/pen since you can't control the paper.

[Mercian]

1 hour ago, Claes said:

Since my pal is a fountain pen user, we

started to discuss suitability of different ink/nib/paper combos.

Registrars’ Ink (or any other dry-writing iron-gall ink ) will be best for this kind of paper.
E.g. Pelikan 4001 Blue-black.
Or Noodler’s Black.

Maybe Sailor Kiwa Guro, because it doesn’t spread or feather very much. Then again, it’s also not ‘inexpensive’.

 

If your friend wants an ink that will stand out from his students’ writing, I would recommend that he try Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa (an i-g ink that is a sui generis dusky purple colour).
It works well in most of my pens, but when I tried it in my first aerometric Parker “51” it felt so dry and un-lubricated under the nib that I dumped it out of the pen.
Which surprised me, because R&K’s blue-black i-g ink, Salix, works well in my “51”s.

 

All of the above have decent water-resistance too.

 

Parker Quink may be a good candidate for use on cheapo copier paper, but it has zero water-resistance.
Oh, and the Quink ‘Blue/black’ turns to a weird/pleasing shade of teal on many kinds of paper.
I dislike that property of the ink (because it’s not what I expect from a ‘blue/black’ ink), but it would mean that it too would stand out from his students’ writing 😁
 

[Claes]

Thanks @Mercian,

 

I agree. I plan to order Scabiosa as well as Salix

tomorrow (er... plus another 9 or so from R&K's range).

Luckily, they are available from a Swedish web shop

[Mercian]

8 hours ago, Karmachanic said:

 

Writing paper is sized.   Coated vs Uncoated paper. "Note that it’s more difficult to use a pen or pencil to write on coated paper."

Ta very glad for the information - now let’s see whether I can remember it 🤪

[arcfide]

It's almost impossible to predict the performance of "cheapest office copier paper." I've had some brands be surprisingly usable, while others were trash. 

 

If you want to grade papers, I do find that most of the trad-red colors work very well on absorbent paper, and appear more vibrant there. This would include things like Platinum, Pelikan, and Lamy Red. Waterman Red might be too intense in such cases. However, Cassis Black from Platinum is a terrific color on such paper, and has the advantage of iron gall characteristics. 

 

IMO, when you are down at the "cheapest levels," the key attribute to focus on is feathering, and not much else. At that level, I don't worry about bleedthrough too much, since feathering is the thing that makes writing unreadable, whereas bleedthrough just makes things less economic. 

 

For a black ink, Waterman Intense Black is very good on such papers, and I've found Platinum dyestuff Black to be strangely effective on papers that bleed and feather with other inks, weirdly so. 

 

If there were one brand of pen and ink that I would recommend as most likely as a whole to "just work" out of the box, then I'd just go with Platinum. They have the widest variety of inks and pens that just work on such papers. 

[Lithium466]

3 hours ago, Mercian said:

Oh, and the Quink ‘Blue/black’ turns to a weird/pleasing shade of teal on many kinds of paper.
I dislike that property of the ink (because it’s not what I expect from a ‘blue/black’ ink), but it would mean that it too would stand out from his students’ writing 😁
 

I don't think current Quink still turns to greenish...it is likely Waterman rebottled now (which also had that habit at some point).

 

I do agree with Platinum inks recommendation (except maybe Carbon black and possibly the other pigmented except for Chou Kuro that I haven't tested), many are working pretty well on bad papers.

[Mercian]

4 hours ago, Lithium466 said:

I don't think current Quink still turns to greenish...it is likely Waterman rebottled now (which also had that habit at some point).

My own Quink ‘blue/black’ is in some cartridges that I bought in 2020 (after the ink was reformulated in ~2017).

As well as the weird colour-shift, I found that it disliked certain types of paper (smooth stuff like Rhodia/Clairefontaine, iirc).

So, it is certainly possible - and I would not be surprised to learn - that the company has reformulated their blue/black ink again since then.

[Bo Bo Olson]

I'm probably missing things on my papers picked for shading inks.

 

Zander's Gohrsmuehle Bank Post (bond) 80g. A good paper; some inks shade on it. Not great about where I'd put Mondi's Color Copy 100g.

At first I thought Mondi's 100g to be just fine, but I became disappointed in it. Due to certain shading inks didn't shade or shade much on it.

 

Every paper that Brunner makes is worthless; but for the three  'M&K' papers, a paper that was great in the '30's but died in the '50's. As paper noobie I bought 7-9 of them and they didn't even shade.

I've only one, now, the Typewriter 95 g...good only on one side in it's typing paper, now called Office. Not quite  as good at shading as the below. I would put Neusteidler Japan Post 80g here. It is a discontinued paper that I was very lucky to get three reams of at a more than fair price. As good as I'd heard of in the last 15 years...very occasionally. Very glad to have a good paper.

 

Good papers....I would put Oxford Optic 90g, Clairefontaine Velote`  90g and Kyome 70g on the very same level.

And thanks to whom ever that recommended Kyome so much I actually got off my butt and got some. For 70g that is some coating. I had both of the other two at least twice.

 

 

I have Clairefontaine Triomphe, a fine paper. I don't have Rhoda 80 but have 90g, that some don't care for as much as the 80g. I'm going to have to get some of the 80 in  found the 90 to be good. I put Mondi 120g Copy Paper  here.

 

My god, if one starts looking around...Elite Linen Block is a good rough paper.

or in the 160 besides G.Lalo, there is Roessler  160 g....that is the only Roessler worth buying................well the 120g would be illegal to use on Sunday in Kansas being smoother than hell but is a feather champ (from my memory)....but I have the 160 sitting there waiting for hell to freeze over. 5-6 same weight papers in different colors behind it waiting for use.

 

Gmund Blanc Beige creme 170g...at the price $$$ €40 for 100 sheets way back then...it took me some 4-5 years of testing 12 of Gmunds fountain pen friendly papers before I finally grew a pair of balls and bought. At the last second I chose the 170g heavy paper over the slightly better 120g of the same make, in I like heavy paper.

The Gmund original didn't match the other cheaper papers. (do buy some 12 different papers, before choosing). A better writing paper than the following.

 

Then there is Avery Zerkweckform, whom, I bought many different weights that all ended up in the printer...even the 170g. Too slick, but after printing out some 15-20 pages I rescued it. It would make milk shade.

It is a paper that gets to tell me how good a paper shades.