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Rhodia is now officially available in India. Rhodia products are available on flipkart.com and amazon.in Alternatively, you can also contact us at info@abhimanintl.in directly for placing an order or to inquire for bulk/ corporate orders. Regards, AbhimanIntl

I picked up a A5 unlined Elco Prestige pad when in Switzerland recently, where it was quite reasonably priced, a little less than Clairefontaine, Lalo, and so on. It is widely available — I bought it in a rather ordinary department store. The pad itself was unremarkable, though it has a stiff enough back. The best thing about it is that it has not only dark line guides, but a sheet of blotting paper on top. However, it is firmly glued into the block, and at least the first sheets I have torn out did not tear off completely cleanly. The paper feels thin (80g) and smooth but looks matte. It is not a bright white, but far from ivory, and has a bit of texture. I wrote on it with five different pens, all but the last of which are smooth writers (F-C Loom (warm brown, Pilot Metropolitan (black) and Preppy (Emerald), Platinum Plaisir (cool brown), Noodler's Konrad (blue)) and it had a little feedback, but I did not feel it was dragging. The different inks I tried behaved quite differently on the paper, as can be seen below, with two of the three in a medium nib spreading, and also feathering to a small degree. However, none bled through, and there was very little ghosting, even in the feathered inks. I was hoping for a sheen, but there was none noticeable. One of the shading inks shaded (Diamine Sargasso Sea), but not to the degree seen on many papers. Herbin's Emerald of Chivor (usually high shading) and (usually some shading) Montblanc's ~2006 Limited Edition Seasonal Brown, and Noodler's Burma Road Brown did not have noticeable shading. Good news for those who like a monochrome experience. Drying time was good.