Reduced quality of Lamy notebooks

[tim77]

Until today my favourite notebooks were made by Lamy.  The paper was good quality and the hybrid lined/squared ruling is useful.
However the new Lamy notebook I started today is showing quite strong ink feathering and bleeding.  Just to check I wrote a line in each of 3 Lamy notebooks, at the same time and with the same pen.  Photos below.
Has anybody else noticed a recent reduction in the quality of Lamy paper?
 

 

[Bo Bo Olson]

No, but I didn't even know they made notebooks.

Do let them know they are falling down on the job.

 

They really have to want folks to be  happy buyers, in they have to do with automation what is done in China by cheap labor. I won a newspaper factory tour 6 or so years ago.

 

Now that the patent has expired on the Safari half the factories in China are making Safari clones. So I'm sure they don't want to lose customers for any reason.

 

[Mercian]

Thread Resurrection 2024-10-28

 

I have been using Rhodia Webnotebooks for journalling for some time now, because the paper in them is very good for fountain-pen use.

That said, I have been toying with the idea of buying one of the notebooks produced by Lamy, not least because I am drawn to their 8mm line-separation with 4mm dot-gridding printed over it.

 

But this thread is the most-recent mention of these notebooks on here, and it is a lament about the reduced fountain-pen-friendliness of the paper in the notebooks.

 

So, can anyone in FPN-land confirm that the paper in these notebooks is, in 2024, still this, lower quality, stuff?
Or can anyone say that the paper has been improved since 2021, and is now fountain-pen friendly?

 

RSVP.

 

Slàinte,
M.

[tim77]

I wrote to Lamy when I noticed the degraded paper, but their reply was so unhelpful I simply abandoned the brand.  If you decide to try their 2024 production I'll be interested to see what you find.

[Azulado]

Before making a definitive judgment on the quality of a product, it is necessary to consider some factors that may affect them. Speaking of paper, it is actually normal for the edges to be more sensitive to bleed than the central area of the paper. This is accentuated with the passage of time. The paper degrades, so to speak.
It happened to me with a 90 GSM Canson notebook that bled a lot. I wrote to the brand and they sent me two notebooks in perfect condition. On another occasion I wrote to a Brazilian brand called Tilibra to ask them why the same notebooks had paper with different characteristics. They told me that they had several suppliers.
It is common in many papers that the back of the paper is different from the back. The top side has a different texture than the bottom (smoother and less absorbent).
A technician working in a paper mill could tell us about all this, surely there are simple explanations that are beyond the reach of a layman.
In any case, I would not rule out the possibility that it is a batch in poor condition. Look at the paper with a magnifying glass to see if you notice any differences in texture. If they have changed suppliers, I think it is practically impossible to reproduce the original characteristics, just look at the discussions about the new and old Tomoe River.