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I believe these are the last Hobonichi products to use the ‘old’ Tomoe River 52gsm paper produced on Tomoegawa's since-decommissioned ‘machine number 7’, as stocks of the paper are being run out: Compared to ordering direct from Hobonichi: and there is a maximum of ten units per product per order — which means, even with ten of the A5 and ten of the A6 Plain notebooks, the total order value of $300 would still fail to qualify for free shipping to Australia. Shipping charges are $42 for one book, $52 for ten A6 books, $58 for ten A5 books, and $66 for the two lots of ten books.

I just thought I'd share the ‘opportunity’ with others who'd want to squeeze the last bit out of the changing landscape. Milligram in Australia is having a 30%-off sale for selected products, including several Sakae Technical Paper Tomoe River FP (paper pad, and 50- and 100-sheet packs of loose sheets) products. I didn't see any low stock warnings for any (white or cream, 52gsm or 68gsm, A4 or A5, etc.) product variant when I looked just now. (Yes, I think these are all made from the ‘old’ paper produced by Tomoegawa's paper milling machine no.7.) The ‘Friends For Life’ discount supposedly do not apply to these sale products, but in fact it does in the checkout process. I was prompted by an email from Milligram yesterday (with the subject "$40 gift from us to you - that's what friends are for!”) advising inconsistently that “we're changing our loyalty program” and “We've changed our loyalty program”. (It looks like the change has been implemented, and “For Life” and ”Forever” no longer mean what the average person would think the marketing expressions mean.) The voucher code can be applied to further bring down the total value of the order. Free shipping applies if the discounted total value of an order (i.e. payment due in real money) exceeds the relevant threshold. Given that Kobe INK Story has been taken off Milligram's catalogue, Robert Oster inks in selected colours are seldom individually discounted any more, and the shop's prices of Pilot Iroshizuku inks have gone up significantly all in the last year or so, there just isn't a whole lot to buy from Milligram at some cost-saving (compared to ordering from Amazon AU or overseas retailers) any more. Most of the heavily discounted clearance products are now shifted over to Milligram Outlet by default, where the loyalty programme discounts and free shipping offer do not apply. So, as much as I'm not a fan of Tomoe River FP paper, to take advantage of dying loyalty benefits before they are extinguished, I foolishly bought a few packs with no clear application in mind, and will probably end up giving away to kiddies on which to draw.