Ideenstadl Aged Paper

May 3, 2015

I do hope this has not been covered elsewhere. I did a search and could find nothing on the forum.

I recently had need of some aged paper and not having time to mess about with tea staining and all its vagaries I decided to cheat :-)

After a fair bit of searching (it may have been quicker with the tea) I took the plunge and ordered some Ideenstadl aged paper from Amazon UK. I am no expert on paper but I suspect this is product is designed primarily for laser/inkjet printers and of course the ageing is applied by four colour offset printing. The product retails at £17.90 for 100 sheets. (27.10 USD, 24.19 Euro)

Texture: This paper has an irregular texture but is actually rather smooth to write upon and takes the ink okay for a ink jet compatible paper. There is some feathering particularly on the horizontal cross stroke but I can live with that given that my idea was to produce a faux aged letter. I have tried this paper out with a range of nibs and it does have a slight drag which is not too unpleasant. If you prefer the skating rink like surface of Rhodia papers you may be disappointed. The drag is a notch or two above Crown Velum.

http://i59.tinypic.com/osa837.jpg

Scent: Yes scent :-) I don't know about you but the scent or lack of scent on a paper can be calming or irritating. In this case it is irritating. The paper is wrapped in a thin clear plastic wrapper and as soon as you remove the wrapping a plastic chemical smell hits you. Whilst this scent does reduce with time it does not go all together by any means.

Bleed Through: The paper is 90 gsm and it does allow ink to bleed through (see image below). In the image shown I have used J Herbin Cacao du Brasil applied with a Lamy 1.9mm nib and of course that is going to be wet. However it shows similar bleed through with Diamine, Pelikan, Kuweco and Visconti inks using finer nibs. For me (and what I was trying to achieve) not a great problem.

Practicalities: Ink dries quickly due to absorption qualities of the paper. Folding the paper is easy and the folding produces a good clean edge. The printed surface is not damaging by folding of a reasonable thumbnail pressure crease. Matching envelopes can be purchased. At 90 gsm plus the offset printing this is opaque paper it is impossible to use a lined under guide. You can apply soft pencil lines but due to the printed surface it is essential that you use only a soft eraser to remove them.

Recommended Inks: I have not tried a wide range of inks but the J Herbin Cacao du Bresil works well and matches the paper nicely. Lighter inks such as J Herbin Ambre de Birmanie, a beautiful ink on white, will struggle to make themselves known on this paper. Darker inks look all wrong in my opinion. Medium browns and greys work well as I suspect would a medium sienna red.

Conclusions: This is a novelty paper and great for making treasure maps for the kids and even invitations to themed functions. Obviously it is not an everyday paper and I would not recommend using to to reply to tax demands. It is pleasant to use with a broad nib pen but avoid scratchy fine nibs.

http://i58.tinypic.com/2lbckcj.jpg