Oxford Is Just Great

October 28, 2018

About a year ago a colleague turned me on to Oxford notebooks, having used Rhodia and Clairefontaine for a long time before that. I love Rhodia, not just the paper but also the design in that wonderful golden yellow. It took me a while to get hooked on Oxford, but once the hook sank in... Some reasons why I've come to prefer Oxford:

-significantly lower price compared to Rhodia and Clairefontaine (for example: three thick, 100-page A4 spiralbound notebooks can be had for 8 euros)

-huge range of products

-every Oxford notebook has margins (except the ones with blank paper), whereas Rhodia and Clairefontaine often do not have vertical lines (which annoys me greatly)

-Oxford usually uses 90 g/m^2 paper whereas Rhodia uses 80 g/m^2 (don't know about Clairefontaine), which translates into "more paper, less coating". This is the main selling point for me. It doesn't feel like writing on plastic at all; Oxford paper is soft, organic and smooth and all of my pens love it, whereas some of my pens really don't like Clairefontaine

-in terms of feathering (none), bleedthrough (none) and showthrough (same as other good brands), Oxford is at least on the level of other brands

-Rhodia can feel very different on both sides of the same page; the front side of a page is sometimes a bit rough and makes pens look dry, whereas the backside will be smooth and wet.

In short, Oxford offers more for less and I honestly cannot find a single quality of Rhoda or Clairefontaine that Oxford doesn't match. I haven't tried Tomoe River yet, but that's probably too expensive for my huge daily turnover at work.

October 28, 2018

I completely agree. Oxford is my favorite and my everyday writing paper (together with Midori MD Notebooks).

It feels and works great with all of mine fountain pens.

October 28, 2018

Oxford paper is my favourite too. So economical and well behaved with anything I throw at it, including large italic calligraphy pens. No bleedthrogh, showthrough or feathering and has a nice paper surface as opposed to a slick plastic feeling.

October 29, 2018

I went to Amazon and searched for "Oxford Notebook". Besides all the sponsored results (blech!) I saw results for Ampad notebooks with an Oxford branding on them, and "Oxford Black n' Red A4" which looks like a normal Black n' Red. And several items with "Oxford University" in the name. Can you add some links to what products you're talking about? I don't care if they're on Amazon, I'm just trying to learn more about it.