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I found Hyacinth notebooks and notepads at my local art store in southern California. I had never seen nor heard of Hyacinth, so I was intrigued when the store had several large endcap displays of nothing but this brand. I was surprised by their fountain pen-friendliness and even more surprised by their price. The specs of the 3 Hyacinth products: B6 (176 x 125 mm) notebook, 112 sheets of 80gsm, blank, thread-bound, ivory-colored paperA6 (148 x 105 mm) notebook, 112 sheets of 80gsm, blank, thread-bound, ivory-colored paperB7 (125 x 88 mm) notepad, 60 sheets of 80gsm, blank, glued, ivory-colored paperThe notebooks come with a bookmark that is glued into the spine. They can be made to lay flat, thanks to the way the sheets are arranged. The last 16 sheets of the notebooks are perforated and they tear out cleanly. The notepad can also be made to lay flat, with the cover capable of being folded back under the rest of the pad. It has a glued spine that allows you to tear off one sheet at a time. I tested all 3 of the products listed above and found the paper in each to be identical in performance. The outcome: The paper performs very well!It handled ink swabs without bleeding.The broad nibbed fountain pens I used did not cause feathering or bleeding.There was minimal (very minimal!) bleed from Noodler's La Reine Mauve, but I forgive these notebooks because Noodler's LRM seems to bleed through most of the fountain pen-friendly paper I use.This paper allowed shading and sheening, though it didn't accentuate either of these ink characteristics.The paper is similar in smoothness to the paper in my Midori passport-sized lined notebook. That is to say it is smooth but not as smooth as regular Rhodia paper.One drawback: serious show through. The backs of pages are not unusable, but if you won't tolerate show through then this is not the paper for you.Overall, I would say this is great paper for use as everyday notebooks, journals, scratch paper, pocket/purse notebooks, regular notepad duties, etc. I wouldn't use these notebooks for archival writing or for anything I want to cherish - I'd save that for more expensive, higher quality journals. The final thing to mention: I bought these 3 products for a total of $6.50 plus tax! The B6 was $3, the A6 was $2.50, and the notepad was $1. For the number of sheets, the quality of paper, and the added touches (i.e. bookmarks, perforated pages, ability to lay flat) I think this is an absolute steal. This concludes my review. Thanks for reading. I have added images below for those who are interested. Hyacinth paper sleeve, front of notebook. Sleeve says 112 pages but in fact there are 112 sheets (224 pages): Hyacinth paper sleeve, back of notebook: Left to right = B6 notebook, A6 notebook, B7 notepad, Lamy Safari for size reference: Notepad on top of notebook, demonstrating the ability to lay flat and showing sheet arrangement in notebook spine: Thread-bound, ivory-colored notebook paper: Ink swabs, top to bottom = Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-Peki, Monteverde Califonia Teal, Diamine Oxblood: Back of ink swab page. No bleed! Definite show through: Pen tests: Back of pen test page. Definite show through. No bleed for broad nibs, minimal bleed for Noodler's La Reine Mauve:

This is a quick review of the Top's Engineer's Computation Pad. I used these throughout graduate school. But I typically used pencil or mechanical pencil since I was writing scientific equations and doing mathematical calculations. I always liked them because the paper was lighter, yet not cheap. And the surface had a nice smooth feel to it. I thought it would be fun to see how this paper holds up to fountain pens and fountain pen inks. I am sure many others have tested these pads before, so please refer to their reviews as well. For my test, I used all the pens that I had inked tonight, including a variety of nibs and inks. The majority of these pens have fairly wet nibs and many of the inks are fairly wet as well. Here is a scan of the actual page. This is the back of the page I expected a large amount of show through and far more bleed through that what is experienced here, especially with some of these inks which are notorious bleeders. The downside is that there was a fair amount of feathering with wider nibs - a little more than HP copy paper and far less than Cambridge notebook paper. Overall, I am pleasantly surprised and will continue to use these computation pads particularly for work related functions and general note-taking. I purchased the 2-pad pack of 100 sheets each for $6.98 on Amazon. They are easy on the eyes and on the budget and may be a good alternative for students.

ANOKHI'S - BAHI KHATA NOTEBOOK The review is simultaneously posted at my blog here : LINK Well there are someday when you are shopping with your wife with not so much interest. Going from one store to another and yet she has not been able to find her perfect match for clothing. And you are dragged like anything and there is nothing which interests you and all you keep thinking in mind is : “I wish it was a stationary shop”. Certain such instance almost happened when I was moving from one Retail store to another but hey I was not bored this time. The store that we went to was “ANOKHI“to shop for traditional Indian ethnic wear. It had notebooks made out of traditional block printed cloth cover and hand sewn. I was happy but not my wife as she did not like anything to her liking there that day. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – So this is what I came out with ANOKHI’s origins can be traced to Jaipur and is traditional craft based Apparel brand. Jaipur is famous for many crafts among which two famous crafts are Blue Pottery and Hand Block Printing. The brand has essentially revived the traditional hand block printing craft and they use vegetable dyes only. The first Anokhi store was opened in 1984 and have grown manifolds with not just stores in India but also stores in USA and also many distributors in Europe. Hand Block Printing So this review is about the Notebook from Anokhi which they call “Bahi-Khata” which actually means Ledger – Book in Hindi Language. DESIGN & BUILD : Here it is all about Design. The notebook is beautifully designed has a sewn cloth cover over a paper board. First the cloth is pasted and then sewn for giving it strength. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Front Cover The notebook comes with different cloth covers and patterns and has string which makes the perfect case for Journal as sometimes lot of loose paper are kept inside notebook and string takes care of that when you close it. This notebook is medium size which is equal to B5 size. Though I also saw lot of other smaller sizes also. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Rear Cover The front and rear cover are made of same cloth and finishing is quite nice apart from the certain niggles at the centre sewn part inside. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Paper Torn at Joint. I will probably paste a cloth here also. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Corner Detail – Very Neat Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – String Sew and and same string extends for wrapping around Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Bottom View I picked this from store and it was all in display and thus there was no packing. Thus nothing much to say here. PERFORMANCE / QUALITY : Now the real part. As I have mentioned earlier and I believe most of us all know that the quality of paper as far as using with fountain pen is concerned is dependent on lot of parameters like ink resistance, shading, sheen, feathering, bleed-through, paper colour, smoothness or texture and few others. Few properties are also dependent with ink properties like shading and sheen. There is a bright white thick paper when you open the notebook with Lord Ganesha imprinted. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – First Page The writing paper inside is not super white, and is just leaning a little towards grey. There is no mention of quality of paper so I have no Idea of gsm of the paper. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing Paper leaning towards grey colour The paper is quite smooth and is has no texture. Love the feeling when pen touches the paper it is quite smooth. The paper is lined and also comes in blank page format. Really love the feel of those top two green line at top as a Header. All pens and inks performed really well, whether be it Italic nib or fine point nib. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing on it – Front side Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing on it – Rear side Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing on it – Close Up – 1 Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing on it – Close Up 2 Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – Writing on it – Close Up – Rear Side As visible from above images it is quite clear that the paper has performed surprisingly really well. There is no feathering and bleed-through and even some inks like Diamine Majestic and Iroshizuku Yama Budo showed Sheen which my camera was not able to capture. It has performed really really well. I though still feel the sewing and punching of notebook could be improved. Performance summary is as follows: Ink Resistance : HighPaper Texture : SmoothFeathering : NoneBleed-through : NoneShading : HighSheen : Medium VALUE : The B5 – Medium Size notebook with 100 pages was bought by me at MRP of Rs. 150 ( US $ 2.22 at today’s exchange rate of 1 USD = Rs. 67.47). There is no mention of paper quality or no. of pages, though there are 100 leaves after my count. Anokhi Bahi Khata Notebook – No mention of Paper Quality and Nos. Though date and place of manufacturing are clearly mentioned. CONCLUSION : I was on lookout for the Journal for a long time and this has fulfilled all my desires. Both sides of paper can be used for writing. And all the inks and pens have performed flawlessly. I wish the paper could have been a bit brighter though and the quality of thread stitching can be improved but @Rs. 150 I should not be complaining much. I will recommend this to all Journal lovers to at-least try one. Trust me you wont be disappointed with the paper. Oh by the way it is not available online, only in their Retail stores.

JK CEDAR - 100 GSM The search for that elusive paper which is good for fountain pen brought me to one of the paper which I was using to print handout for the design presentation, the paper was JK Cedar. While printing, I realised the quality of paper is good and its super white bright and then I decided to give it a shot with few of my fountain pen and inks. J.K. Paper is exporter of Branded Copier Paper to over 35 countries. They are the market leader in India in Branded Copier Paper segment. Apart from Office Paper, they also have manufacture in Packaging Boards, Printing and Writing Paper, and Speciality Paper like MICR Cheque Paper. They have two paper mill in India in Odisha and Gujarat. This review is about one of the copy paper from J.K. Paper Ltd. called J.K. Cedar. DESIGN & BUILD :Well there is nothing much to talk about as far as design or build is concerned as this is a copier paper which comes in Ream of 500 sheets. The paper is marketed for colour copying and printing purpose. JK Cedar – Premium Colour Copying and Printing Paper JK Cedars – Ream’s Rear Side The packaging is done in nice glossy coated paper which just serves the purpose right. As you can see the paper size is A4 and it is 100 gsm and the whole ream weighs around 3.12 kg. JK Cedar – A4 size – 500 Sheets Ream As far as packaging and cover is concerned it is how all the papers are packed in reams and supplied all over. So nothing much to say here. PERFORMANCE : As I have mentioned earlier and I believe most of us all know that the quality of paper as far as using with fountain pen is concerned is dependent on lot of parameters like ink resistance, shading, sheen, feathering, bleed-through, paper colour, smoothness or texture and few others. Few properties are also dependent with ink properties like shading and sheen. The paper is super bright white paper. And the quality of paper is 100 gsm. JK Cedar – Bright White Paper The paper is quite smooth and has no texture. The fountain pen actually glides over the paper. It is very smooth to write on and most of the Italic pens, which used to pick fibres in other low quality copier paper, also performed amazingly well. JK Cedar – Writing on it JK Cedar – Writing on it – Rear Side JK Cedar – Written Samples with Different Ink – Close-up 1 JK Cedar – Written Samples with Different Ink – Close-up 2 As visible from above samples and even the close-ups, it is clear that there is no feathering and bleed-through in most of the ink except the Chelpark Black which shows some bleed-through on rear side and I believe the ink is not good. The paper is quite good when it comes to resisting inks (non absorbing) and provides decent amount of shading also. I see some sheen (mostly with Iroshizuku and sailor inks) which was difficult to capture as the sheen was on lower side. It has performed extremely well with most of the inks. Performance summary is as follows: Ink Resistance : HighPaper Texture : Very SmoothFeathering : NoneBleed-through : Very LowShading : HighSheen : Low VALUE : This ream of 500 sheets was bought by me at discounted price at Rs. 250 ( US $3.75) The paper can be used to print different patterns like I do before start writing ans you can also get the paper notebook bind. JK CEDAR – Plain Paper, Grid Pattern, & Dott Pattern At Rs. 0.50 per sheet ( US $ 0.01 per sheet) and that too such an amazing performance its a steal. It has fabulous value for money. CONCLUSION : If someone asks me what is best paper for fountain pens manufactured in India, I would say JK Cedar. I recommend this to all the users of fountain pen community. Its easily available on Flipkart and Amazon.

Hello Everyone! So I posted this on the other forum, but that's the one I had been more active in because the content is less overwhelming than FPN. However, now that I've gotten more comfortable here, I realize that I hadn't shared this review here yet. So here goes... When I first started this hobby in December of 2014, I didn't know what I was getting into. It started out with only a few inexpensive pens. Then came the realization that most paper does not like fountain pen ink. Then came the search for paper that will play nice with the bountiful options of fountain pen inks. Then came the start of "Hmm, I think I like this better than that" list. Long story short, my two favorite papers became Apica and Tomoe River. Which got me thinking, if I like the two best known Japanese papers available for FPs, what other Japanese papers are out there and are any of them good? Thus began the search on JetPens for paper. How did I determine if it was Japanese? By the oh-so-scientific method of "does the name sound Japanese?" I found 5 brands that "sounded" Japanese to me, and then threw in one more that didn't quite sound Japanese in for good measure. So here's the first of 6 reviews I will be doing. Specifications from JetPen's website: Model Number KOKUYO NO-GG108B Weight 6.0 ounces Manufacturer Kokuyo Binding Glue Cover Material Cardstock Cover Type Softcover Features Archival Quality, Fountain Pen Friendly, pH-Neutral Line Spacing 6 mm Number of Lines 28 Number of Sheets 80 Paper Weight 60 gsm Perforated No Refillable No Sheet Style Lined Size - Depth .7 cm Size - Length 21 cm Size - Width 14.8 cm Standard Paper Size A5 Monetary Considerations: Cost $6.75 Cost per Sheet $0.08 The Good: So far I like this paper. It is very smooth to the touch and the nib glides over it rather easily, even the sometimes touchy Esterbrook 2048. However, there was still enough feedback from the paper that it still felt like you were writing on paper. Anything glass smooth would make writing on it unmanageable. The rule lines are a nice soft grey. It is easy enough to see, but also easy enough to overlook when reviewing the writing. The page itself is what I would consider a soft white. There is enough pigment to make it easy on the eyes, but pale enough that it did not seem to alter the color of the ink. It displays the same ink haloing that I like on TR and Apica. There was very little to no feathering, and the spread looks true to size. There was very little bleedthrough on the page, and the bits that did was due to multiple passes, slight nib scoring with the Esterbrook flex, or when my nib decided I needed a nice blob of ink. The overall construction of the notebook is pretty good. The binding bends, but so far, I do not see any breakage when I fold it completely open at any point. Also, the binding tape is a textured silver foil that gives it a nice bit of pop without being absolutely obnoxious. The Bad: The cover is really flexible, which normally isn't an issue for me. However, with it being a relatively thick notebook, there is little to no support under the page on the short side. Also, the notebook will not lay absolutely flat when open. Due to the style of binding, it has a bit of bubble/curve near the spine. There is also a fair bit of showthrough which can be distracting. If writing on the back is a must, it might be a good idea to invest in either a dark sheet of cardstock or print out a black field to minimize the visibility of the showthrough. The Ugly: There was nothing truly "ugly" about the notebook. None of the grievances listed above were deal-breakers for me. However, this might change as I use the notebook more. I'll try to return to this post in the future if I find any unacceptable issues with the notebook. Pictures: From JetPen's Website http://static.jetpens.com//images/a/000/014/14202.jpg Writing Samples http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy41/naimitsu/Fountain%20Pen%20Stuff/a90eb60f-000e-4dfb-9675-dcee9a56332a.jpg http://i776.photobucket.com/albums/yy41/naimitsu/Fountain%20Pen%20Stuff/6b42dadb-7422-462e-8ff8-d134c26dc171.jpg

Yesterday, I started writing on a Rhodia 80gsm 5x5 quadrille mouse pad that was kindly PIFfed to me by mrtx2aggie. It is a 30 sheet pad of 9"x7.5" paper, gumbound on two sides. The backing is rather soft and flexible paperboard and has enough tack to prevent it from sliding about on my particle-board keyboard tray. Here, so far, are my impressions. The squares are about half X-height for my hand, which is all well and good. Second, I got no feathering with any of the pens in current rotation: Parker Vector Broad (2mm or so) Calligraphy Pen:Parker Quink blue cartridge Pelikan M200 Fine:4/5 to 9/10 Red-Black (diluted to reduce smudging) Sizzle Stix Oblique Stub (aka SSOS) :7/9 Diamine Damson Parker "51" XF:MontBlanc-Simplo Black with SuperCleaner SC21 (aka Dad's "51") Platinum Plaisir F:Widow Maker rehydrated with imprecision Platinum Plaisir F:Sheaffer Skrip Turquoise (Slovenian) Jinhao 250, Iro Ku-Jaku Side strokes on the Vector are nicely crisp and fine, a bit more so than the Norcom Broad ruled 8x10.5 spiral notebooks I get from Wal-Mart for 10-17 cents each during Back to School. For whatever reason, the broad-ruled Norcom notebooks are much less feather-prone than the college ruled notebooks. All of the inks shade to some degree. It's most evident with the Vector and the SSOS. As the MB-S is one of the least saturated blacks I've ever owned (it's only marginally darker than a black Fisher Space Pen cartridge), it too shades a little bit, even though Dad was a lefty and no doubt favored the "51" in part for its dry line. There is no ghosting without some sort of backlighting, such as when a sheet from the pad is sitting on top of another piece of paper under a rather bright desk lamp -- except for the Parker calligraphy pen. Even that is entirely minimal and does not affect legibility. The same cannot be said for either my 20lb 88 brightness GP copy paper and Norcom broad-ruled spirals. The paper is nicely smooth. It takes longer for ink to dry than my spirals or 20lb 88 brightness GP all-purpose cheapest printer paper I can get at Walmart. Sorry, no testing on this sheet. The paper is gum-bound along the bottom and left edges. This makes it less than useful to me as a mouse pad, as I am most likely to drag the right edge with my sleeve. In short, it is clearly much better than the paper I usually use, as paper. But its format makes it merely a scratch pad. And because I don't give that much space to mousing on my keyboard tray, it's a little tricky for me to use it even for that. I am very grateful to mrtx2aggie for the gift, and I plan to use it to test inks for shading, something my usual paper inhibits.

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.

This post is a bit picture heavy, but I am going to try and keep most of the writing in the beginning and then group the pictures together at the end so that if you just want to read you don’t have to scroll forever… The notebook I want to look at today is made by Roaring Spring Paper Products and it’s called “Environotes.” From that kind of name you know it’s going to be “green,” even though that can mean a multitude of things nowadays. According to the back of that front flap, this notebook is made from the waste products that come from processing sugarcane. Their claim is that “Producing sugarcane paper conserves over 60,000 acres of forestland every year!” I mean, who can argue with that? I certainly can if the paper inside the notebook is absolute garbage. Luckily, it is not. :-) In case you aren’t interested in reading too much farther, here’s quick list of the things I like and dislike about this notebook: Positives smooth, bright papergood line spacing (college rule, 7 mm)handles most writing instruments with easestiff covers for knee writingnot too expensive (I think this cost me ~$3 for an 80 page notebook)convenient size (9.5” x 6”)fairly sturdy spiral Negatives not perforatedthe paper is pretty thin and can get hung up in the spiral when turning pages Overall, I think that the positives far outweigh the negatives for this notebook. I could definitely see using this as a notebook for class or in the lab or for personal uses. I think that if you get the chance to pick up one of these notebooks you should definitely give it a chance because it’s not like it’s a huge expense and I’m sure anyone could find a use for it. Alright, if you’ve stuck with me this far, you’ve made it to the nitty gritty details… As you can see, the paper held up pretty well against the fountain pens and gel pens that I tried on it, as well as markers. There is a decent amount of show-through because the paper is pretty thin, but I did not have any problems with feathering or bleeding except for that little bit with the markers where I got too excited… The paper also works wonderfully with pencils and colored pencils for sketching: Pencils erase pretty cleanly, which is a good thing for me since I make lots of mistakes! And a final comparison between the color of this paper and the bright white inkjet paper that I use for all of my ink reviews: As you can see, the paper in this notebook is pretty white, bordering on the bluer side of things than cream. Though, part of that could be because of the blue lines throwing things off a bit. Again, I think this notebook is a great deal for the money and I’m glad I gave it a try. Not sure what this notebook will wind up getting used for, but I’m certainly having fun sketching and playing around in it for now. This notebook was purchased with my own money and I am not being compensated for this review in any way. All opinions expressed above are my own and you are free to disagree with them if you like.