In Paper Heaven 完全

[duende]

I am making my own Field Notes-sized notebooks for my outrageously beautiful Inkleaf cover, and this Tamoe River paper would be perfect. I am using G. Lalo for now but the paper is thicker, and I can't put as many pages in the signature. So here's another +1 for the idea of TR paper distribution through the Goulets. Who knows, my fingers might accidentally slip and purchase LE Ink and Apache Sunset

[marcomillions]

OK. Here I am, in the middle of a forest, a range of mountains, and a National Park, with no road in or out You can take the boat in, or a seaplane, or you can hike in. That's it. We can complain about how much EMS charges for international express package mail (but what kind of fool expresses 15 kg of blank paper??). We can complain about Tenso not showing much (any?) goodwill flexibility in regard to their discount promotions. (In a situation similar to Karen's, I placed my order only to discover the discounted shipping promotion had started twenty-four hours later. An American company would likely have offered to include me in the promotion, just for good will, as I said, but Tenso not.) But Tenso are efficient, and genuinely, if impersonally, helpful. And so, though I'm in the middle of the woods, 8 business days after I placed the order on line, Rakuten, Tenso, and EMS got me my Tomoe River. I was impressed.

 

As for the paper itself, it's a little different than I expected. A circumstantial detail first. Unlike Sam's shipment, which came wrapped as four "double reams," my 4000 sheets came in two huge bricks of 2000 sheets each, which promptly split open as I picked them up out of the box. No harm done, but messy, and I had the sense that bricks of 2000 do not protect the paper as well during shipping.. As no harm seems to have come to the paper en route to the U.S., and as I'm not likely to be ordering more in the near future, I'm not going to fret about it.

 

Other differences from expectation. First thing you'll notice: I ordered the white, not the ivory, stock. It is blazingly white. Fine with me, but you may prefer the off-white. Most noticeable to me: the paper has a physical feel to it I don't associate with fountain pens and FP inks, but rather with printing presses and printers' inks. I wonder how this paper is routinely used in Japan. Everyone's description of its thinness, smoothness, and the pleasure it gives as a writing surface--all of which statements are accurate--led me to expect a sort of ethereal, spiritual paper. I wonder. I think it may be an industrial marvel: a paper manufactured to permit the brightest and most precise printed image (for greatest effect) at the lightest possible weight (to save money in mass mailings). That it's wonderful to use with a fountain pen may just have been an unintended side effect we're getting the benefit of.

 

More impressions: I don't think I had fully imagined how thin this paper is. For all that, I got (as you'll see once I get around to photographing some samples) no feathering, no--that's NO again--bleed-through, even when I let the nib rest on the paper for several seconds continuously (I admit I'm using fine nibs), and scarcely any see-through. And, though I was using fine nibs, these results were consistent across three highly saturated inks, Noodler's Borealis Black, Sailor Sei-robu nano blue-black, and the recent R&K LE Blau Swartz.

 

The paper is indeed a pleasure to write on, and the white stock, at least, shows off all three of the inks I mentioned marvelously. But here's a question for you who have used this paper before: I think the two sides of a sheet feel different. One is rather smoother than the other, though both work equally well (no feathering, no bleed-through). Which side should I be using?

 

It's going to be a lot of fun seeing what this paper can do.

 

Marc

[SamCapote]

Marc, see my earlier comment that the limitations on the Rakuten discount is totally controlled and credited by Rakuten only--Tenso has no ability to alter qualification terms. When I was trying to get my first discount with an order of some Sailor ink made for Nagasawa, Tenso did let me know I was past the time cutoff and refunded back to my PayPal because they had not yet transferred my payment to Nagasawa. The important thing is that you have to be in touch with them before the order is either paid by you, or before they do the buying service for you. The discount programs vary in amounts and duration. I mentioned this in my earlier post so people know about these discounts. If you email Tenso support, they seem to get some advance notice what & when the Rakuten discount program will be.

 

I'm not sure if the cream color may be packaged in quantities of 1,000 (vs. your white), but I find it helpful to keep it stored in between some of the A4 size "chipboard" I mentioned earlier in this thead (chipboard is the cardboard backing used for making tablets). Tamoe River is so much thinner than other paper, when I think I only have 2 pages, usually I actually have 4-5 sheets. With the cream color which is what Mr. Yoshino-san uses in his Design-Y notebooks, I cannot feel or see any difference between the front and back.

 

The cream color definitely conveys a more elegant fountain pen use than the brilliant white you bought. If you want, send me a PM, and we can trade a few sheets by snail mail if you want to see the differences.

 

I strongly recommend that everyone buy the cream color paper, as I said in my first post. This was also after some back and forth emails to Mr. Yoshino who gave me the links to Rakuten originally. I asked him about getting the white when I saw the two paper colors. He gave me the understanding that he has looked and tried papers from all over the world, and ended up working with the manufacturing company to get the Tamoe River cream color just how he wanted for his FP notebooks. I'm not 100% sure how much his impact had on the cream TR paper design because of the language translation differences.

Edited July 26, 2012 by SamCapote

[Karen Traviss]

Re the shipping discount -- my purchase was within the discount period. Tenso just didn't send me the voucher until after I'd checked out. Nor did they explain the voucher process when I queried it: they just said to use the voucher when checking out. From what I can see on their site, it's still not clear how you go about generating a voucher, but as I received one (albeit too late to actually use it) then it seems to be part of the automated purchasing process. I didn't contact them separately to ask for one.

[reprieve]

I must have been lucky. Between the time I paid for the paper itself and it arrived at the Tenso warehouse, I received the shipping voucher. I was able to redeem it as soon as Tenso sent me the shipping invoice (which I believe was a day or two after I received the voucher). It was a nice surprise for me as I wasn't aware of the voucher when I ordered and so I did not expect one. It sounds like an automated process that can get delayed or knocked out of order.

 

 

I wonder what Rakuten and Tenso think about all of these sudden international orders for huge reams of paper...

[reprieve]

By the way, I cannot tell any difference in the feel of either side of a sheet (I have the cream paper). As far as I can tell, it feels and looks exactly the same and pens write equally well on both sides.

[marcomillions]

Please don't think I was being critical of the Tomoe River paper. It is, as every one else has said, a joy to write on with a fountain pen. I was just speaking of my expectations of what was going to turn up after this rather exotic adventure in online purchasing. (I wasn't even that critical of Tenso. I was delighted to receive the paper as quickly and painlessly as I did. I get very impatient otherwise.)

 

And if you've been thinking, on the basis of Sam's response, that the off-white paper is the only way to go, I want to tell you that you might be making a mistake. The brilliant surface of the TR white may be less elegant than the off-white, but don't write off the impact the right ink makes on this white surface, especially serious black inks, and especially in fine or extra-fine nibs. Wow! The TR white does wonderful things showing off the shading of some of my favorite blue-blacks. But the power of a thin, densely black line on this brilliant surface is nothing short of electric. I'll try to put some pictures together in the near future.

 

Marc

 

P.S. <I wonder what Rakuten and Tenso think about all of these sudden international orders for huge reams of paper...>

 

LOL, reprieve. I wondered that myself.

[SamCapote]

Re the shipping discount -- my purchase was within the discount period. Tenso just didn't send me the voucher until after I'd checked out. Nor did they explain the voucher process when I queried it: they just said to use the voucher when checking out. From what I can see on their site, it's still not clear how you go about generating a voucher, but as I received one (albeit too late to actually use it) then it seems to be part of the automated purchasing process. I didn't contact them separately to ask for one.

 

 

Karen, as I said earlier in this thread with my buying guide, I initiate all the purchase steps directly using Tenso's "Buying Service." I think others have used Rakuten to make the purchase and then get switched over to shipping with a Tenso Japanese address. There is more control over the whole buying process if you use Tenso's buying service. I never use or input the Japanese address that Tenso gives you when you sign up, because I am not instructing Rakuten, or Nagasawa to ship my purchase to Tenso. Rather, I am giving Tenso the URL link, and asking them to purchase and take possession for me.

 

When it arrives at Tenso, I then do the separate transaction asking/paying for Tenso to ship it to me. EMS is not their only shipping option, but of course is the most reliable, insured, and with signature acceptance full tracking. So when you ONLY interact with Tenso, and make special requests by email, they have more control over how things can be handled.

 

I have also used Tenso to buy things at other non-Rakuten stores in Japan, and it all goes smoothly....but those discount shipping programs are ONLY when something is bought from Rakuten. The responsibility is on the buyer to be in communication with Tenso before the actions are taken if there are problems, special requests, or issues. They have been very accommodating, responsive, and obviously have workers proficient in English, particularly a person named Yulin.

 

This is part of a typical email notification that they send once you are signed up with Tenso listing an active discount program until Aug 2nd:

 

◆◇ How to get the discount ◆◇

 

In order to get the 50% discount off international shipping, you must make all

your purchases at Rakuten Japan before 2nd August 2012. We will send you a

link to get your discount coupon after you make your purchases. At that

point, you can log into your Tenso.com account and group multiple items

together if you wish to save even more on international shipping costs. Please

make sure that you complete payments by 12th August 2012.

More information can be found at the link below:

 

http://bit.ly/LGp5pW

 

In that link, I ignore step #2 of buying it at Rakuten and entering my Tenso address.

 

1) Rather, after registering at Tenso, and logging into my Tenso account, I go to their buying service here:

https://www.tenso.co...titute_shipping

 

 

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/TensoGuide1.jpg

 

2) I then open another browser tab and go to the Rakuten URL (that Mr. Yoshino gave me) which is in Japanese:

http://item.rakuten....-shikisai/50602

/

 

I do NOT log into Rakuten. I have never registered at Rakuten.

 

3) I put the URL in an additional opened browser tab with Google translate:

http://translate.goo...hikisai%2F50602/

This is just so I know what I am about to order.

 

4) I type, copy/paste the needed information to fill out the Tenso buying service, adding up to 5 separate items. This is exactly how my Tamoe Paper purchase would look using the English translated version (the whole line of the "Product Name" I put was "

Notebook paper Tomoeriba <52g> 4000 A4 sheets (Blank - Cream colored paper)

" I do not fill out the Tenso form with kanji characters. I add my own additional words as I see fit.

 

Note: I did add the kanji characters (

クリーム

) after the word Cream in my example below, to make sure I got cream (not white). I additionally confirmed that in emails to Tenso before making payment.

 

http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h75/pike444/Inks/TensoGuide2.jpg

5) I click on the yellow "Agree & Proceed" button, and I'm done with what I want Tenso to buy for me.

 

6) Within minutes, I get an email from Tenso that: "

Your application for Tenso.com buying service was completed

" and then they go off and determine the PayPal payment needed for them to purchase the item on my behalf.

 

7) When I get the next email from Tenso: "

Tenso.com: Please confirm your payment

" I log back in and send PP payment to that pending item.

 

8) When Tenso receives the item, they send me another email "

Tenso.com: Your package arrived at your tenso address

" asking me to pay for the shipping, which I do....and afterwards get a tracking number and it's all done and on the way.

 

Remember they are 13 hours ahead of me here in CT, and do not work on weekends. We need to manage that in our emails especially with a discount mailing deadline.

Edited July 26, 2012 by SamCapote

[SamCapote]

Please don't think I was being critical of the Tomoe River paper. It is, as every one else has said, a joy to write on with a fountain pen. I was just speaking of my expectations of what was going to turn up after this rather exotic adventure in online purchasing. (I wasn't even that critical of Tenso. I was delighted to receive the paper as quickly and painlessly as I did. I get very impatient otherwise.)

 

And if you've been thinking, on the basis of Sam's response, that the off-white paper is the only way to go, I want to tell you that you might be making a mistake. The brilliant surface of the TR white may be less elegant than the off-white, but don't write off the impact the right ink makes on this white surface, especially serious black inks, and especially in fine or extra-fine nibs. Wow! The TR white does wonderful things showing off the shading of some of my favorite blue-blacks. But the power of a thin, densely black line on this brilliant surface is nothing short of electric. I'll try to put some pictures together in the near future.

 

Marc

 

Marc, I was more trying to make it clear that Mr. Yoshino did not recommend to me to buy the white color when I asked him about the two choices. My understanding from how he wrote his response was that he had some feedback/design input regarding the cream being optimal for FP use (in his notebooks). I will exchange some pages with you by mail and we can both give our impressions. It's all subjective though.

[mm1624124]

Other differences from expectation. First thing you'll notice: I ordered the white, not the ivory, stock. It is blazingly white. Fine with me, but you may prefer the off-white. Most noticeable to me: the paper has a physical feel to it I don't associate with fountain pens and FP inks, but rather with printing presses and printers' inks. I wonder how this paper is routinely used in Japan. Everyone's description of its thinness, smoothness, and the pleasure it gives as a writing surface--all of which statements are accurate--led me to expect a sort of ethereal, spiritual paper. I wonder. I think it may be an industrial marvel: a paper manufactured to permit the brightest and most precise printed image (for greatest effect) at the lightest possible weight (to save money in mass mailings). That it's wonderful to use with a fountain pen may just have been an unintended side effect we're getting the benefit of.

 

I think that's the general indication on their website:

http://www.tomoegawa.co.jp/english_2/product/p_ssm/ssm1301.html

 

Vintage onion skin paper was certainly not specifically designed and manufactured for fountain pen use, but it is a pure delight to write on! The type of sizing on the paper will determine how the ink responds--sometimes the ink line spreads and sometimes the nib will "skip" (actually the paper won't take ink); but, absolutely NO bleedthrough and NO feathering. I'm curious how onion skin compares to Tomoe River paper.

[raging.dragon]

You have me wanting *both* the cream and the bright white. :embarrassed_smile:

[Karen Traviss]

 

Karen, as I said earlier in this thread with my buying guide, I initiate all the purchase steps directly using Tenso's "Buying Service

 

I'm not arguing with you, but I did it all through Tenso's buying service. I followed the instructions they gave me in e-mails to the letter. It's simply that something went wrong somewhere along the line and they didn't seem able to put it right.

[penhand]

Sorry to hear some folks had problems, since my order of 4000 sheets went smoothly and I've already passed 3000 onto other FP folks who asked to split the order.

 

Now, I have another person asking for 1000 sheets and I'm thinking of needing another 1000 myself (I'm making notebooks from it).

 

So, if anyone is interested in 1 or 2 reams (1000 or 2000 sheets) of A4 cream, PM me and I'll give you the details.

 

Two quick notes I haven't seen mentioned here before. First is that the paper I received is actually larger than A4 (by 10mm in each dimension). This should be noted since it is EXACTLY the same width as a DL envelope, which means it won't fit without trimming (although it fits great in a US #10 envelope). Second, while the paper is expensive, I've compared it to Conqueror from the UK (which is also a very nice paper) and the cost for me to get a ream of Conqueror (thicker, 500 sheets) over here with the current exchange rate and shipping is actually more than the Tamoe River.

 

I've looked and I'll be trying some domestic sources of thicker, smooth, FP friendly paper but I can't find anything matching the Tamoe River cream in weight and color here in the US. If you are fortunate enough to be in EU, you may have other alternatives as we seem to only grow our paper "thick" over here.

[marcomillions]

Powerlines came down in a thunderstorm last night (Thurs.) and it took about 24 hours to get power restored, which threw all my little plans off. And, my my my, as others of you must know already: it's not easy to take good photos of pens/inks/papers. The two I'm attaching just don't do justice to the brilliance of the paper and the dramatic quality of a thin black line on that background. I thought photographing the examples in today's strong sunlight would do the trick. If anything, it seems to have confused my camera, which turned out quite muddy versions of what my eyes were seeing. You can see, though, in the second first photo [now why did these come up in the reverse order I put them up?], the bright sun has made the see-through more noticeable that it actually is, but you'll notice there's NO bleed-through, not even where I'd scratched some words out at the end of a line in the first sample. And in the first second picture, you can see the lovely shading of the Sailor nano blue-black, and something--though not a full measure--of the clarity of an extra-fine Borealis Black line on the paper, and scarcely anything of the beauty of the color of R&K's new LE Blau-Schwarz. Anyway, forgive these sort of anti-climactic photos. I'll try to do better next time.

 

@mm..... (reminds me of my favorite personal name from an old science fiction novel: Ralph 124C41+): it's fascinating to me that the paper was in fact developed for industrial printing needs (or at least the white stock was).

 

@sam: Yes, I too will be interested in our reactions on both sides after the exchange.

 

@raging: Yes, more of all, please.

 

[Edited to add: And, oh yes, you can see the Tomoe River pulling duty in a Staples Arc binder, after having been run through an inkjet printer and a note-taking template, and doing all these mundane tasks without complaint.]

Edited July 28, 2012 by marcomillions

[marcomillions]

SamCapote and I agreed to exchange a few pages of the differently colored Tomoe River paper. Sam's samples arrived yesterday (Monday), but I couldn't pick them up until today. Tests are still underway, and no doubt Sam will do his own, too, once my sample pages wend their slow way across the country to him. But I will concede right up front that the ivory which Sam is using is more elegant by far than the brilliant white. The white seems also to crumple more or more easily than the ivory, but I'm probably simply a messy folder. More details as they emerge from mere impressions into something more reliably objective.

 

Marc

[SamCapote]

Marc,

 

Received your envelope today. First thing I have to say is that I do not think your paper is significantly different in quality or character from my cream colored Tamoe River paper. I partially folded one of your sheets, so the opposite side overlapped on about a third of the sheet. If you compare the two sides, you must lay the folded paper on top of more paper, or the single sheet edge will look different than the folded over double sheet part.

 

I took 4-5 pens and wrote on both sides, including dragging the line across the folded over edge, and can find no difference with the feel of any various nibs/inks from side to side. I then looked at the front/back paper sides, and how the ink samples appeared on low microscope power, and can find no differences in paper surface or ink deposition.

 

Finally, I tried feeling the sides, reversing, using all my fingers, and even touching against my lips which are much more sensitive, and cannot feel a difference. It does not even feel any different from my cream colored paper. I put both sheets down, closed my eyes, picked up each one trying as carefully as possible to feel a difference between them, and could not. I crumpled up a sheet of both our papers, and still did not notice any difference between them.

 

I think it really comes down to whether you want brilliant white or the slight cream color. One thing for sure is that it will be easier for you to find matching envelope color...but aren't those DL size Conqueror envelopes a nice quality I sent you?

 

Thanks for letting me test your paper. I'm going to post this same information in the thread, since the suggestion of the cream color being different does not seem to be the case.

[Karen Traviss]

I'm now looking at 4,000 sheets of newly-delivered Tomoe River paper.

 

It worked out at 0.96p per sheet delivered, roughly 1.5 cents, and that breaks down as £89.74 for the paper itself, £231.41 for the shipping, and £65.37 import tax. (I don't mind paying duty, or I wouldn't if I had some confidence that the government wouldn't pour the proceeds down the drain, but I really object to paying import tax on shipping as well as the goods.) Anyway, that's not an outrageous price per sheet for what is, at least in the US and UK, a luxury paper. I've paid a lot more for domestic specialty papers.

 

Interesting thing on colours: if the white that you guys have is brilliant white, then how does it compare to the white Tomoe River paper used in the Mucu notebooks? I've got a few of those, and the paper's described as white. It's whiter than the cream Tomoe River when I compare them, but definitely not brilliant white, for example like Exacompta Bristol card.

[SamCapote]

Karen, I hear ya on that duty assessment. It would kill me too.

 

OK, let me back off the "brilliant" descriptor. I laid one of Marc's sheets on top of my Hammermill copy paper, HP 32# LaserJet, Clairefontaine Triomphe, and it is nowhere near as brilliant white as those....so it may be the same as your Mucu notebook. Sorry.

[amberleadavis]

From here:

http://design-y.near...order/cart.html

 

You'd have to just email and ask for that paper like what Sam has and they'll quote you something. They seem very nice from their website.

 

 

That was the same thing we said when calling the "ink store" right? "Just give me what Sam got but in a smaller quantity?"

[Karen Traviss]

Karen, I hear ya on that duty assessment. It would kill me too.

 

OK, let me back off the "brilliant" descriptor. I laid one of Marc's sheets on top of my Hammermill copy paper, HP 32# LaserJet, Clairefontaine Triomphe, and it is nowhere near as brilliant white as those....so it may be the same as your Mucu notebook. Sorry.

 

No problem. I was just wondering if there was a third colour, so to speak. (Like I'm going to buy another 4000 sheets... but the cream's my favourite anyway.) I made a few Midori-size refill notebooks today and I was struck again by how much better it makes any ink look. It seems to give it an added dimension.

 

Only one glitch so far -- my HP printer had a tantrum over the paper size even when I set it to the custom dimensions, so I might get my local stationer to run a ream through his machine and trim it to A4. My guillotine's good enough to make notebooks, but if I'm going to run a stack through a printer, it needs to be spot on.