Crena Spark paper (星火紙) defied my low expectations and positively impresses

[A Smug Dill]

I ordered myself a ream of Crena 星火紙 (Spark paper) in A5 size, out of sheer curiosity. I never liked (‘old’) Tomoe River 52gsm paper because I find it too fiddly, and ready to crease if you so much as look at it funny; hence I gave away more sheets of it as samples than I've actually used for writing myself in years past. So, I wasn't really expecting all that much joy from this paper, but it's cheaper… at face value, anyway. International shipping for the paper, even by slow boat from China, adds quite a few dollars to the marginal cost per ream, notwithstanding that it's only rated at 50gsm. The weight of 500 A5 sheets should be about 777g, but each pack adds at least 1kg to the gross weight for shipping charges calculations.

 

Eventually, after about a five-week wait, I saw why.

 

 

The paper was packaged so securely that it would be inconceivable for it to arrive damaged either by impact or by moisture. Good job! But is the quality of the paper worth all that protection?

 

Trying to pull a couple of sheets out of the pack, without releasing the whole ream from the inner cellophane bag, wasn't easy. Nevertheless, maybe it's an advantage of this being cut to A5 size, it felt less fiddly to handle than loose sheets of Tomoe River 52gsm, which I only have in A4 size.

 

I was primarily interested in how much feathering and bleed-through there would be, after seeing this question on Reddit, and had (and still have) no intention of giving the product a full review. So, I just grabbed a few inks I'd already transferred to squeeze bottles with blunt needle attachments, and dumped a drop of each onto the test sheet from about a metre above and watched it go splat. I then ‘drew’ on it using a fine calligraphy brush, with an ink I've been meaning to open up and test. As an afterthought, I also used a Pilot Iro-utsushi dip pen to write on the sheet with the same ink.

 

Finally, I just pulled a few inked pens from my A5 notebook holder's pocket, and scribbled a few lines with each, primarily to test the feathering aspect of the question.

 

 

Testing the show-through was entirely an afterthought. I hadn't even noticed the claim made on the product label, until I was getting photos and scans ready for this post, and looking at the photo of the label more closely.

 

The results speak for themselves:

 

Photos of both sides of the test sheet

 

(Yes, I can see sheen from Platinum Carbon Black ink when I glance at the writing obliquely. Not so much from Sailor Seiboku, except where I'd dotted my i's; but then, my Sailor TUZU writes quite dryly — the way I like it.)

 

 

Scans of both sides of the test sheet

 

Fragments of the scanned image uploaded at the original resolution of 300dpi,

to show any feathering as candidly as I can reasonably manage

 

No feathering, no bleed-through from writing with a fountain pen, and show-through or ghosting is very minor even when the background is bright white (such as the underside of the flatbed scanner's flip-top cover). Very impressive indeed.

 

I can actually see myself using this paper for drawing or ink testing/swatching because it is fun. That said, I'm oh-so-slightly disappointed that, for a paper this resistant to feathering, bleed-through and show-through, the apparent line widths produced by all the fountain pens I used are broader than I expected.

[AndyLogan]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

I ordered myself a ream of Crena 星火紙 (Spark paper) in A5 size, out of sheer curiosity. I never liked (‘old’) Tomoe River 52gsm paper because I find it too fiddly, and ready to crease if you so much as look at it funny; hence I gave away more sheets of it as samples than I've actually used for writing myself in years past. So, I wasn't really expecting all that much joy from this paper, but it's cheaper… at face value, anyway. International shipping for the paper, even by slow boat from China, adds quite a few dollars to the marginal cost per ream, notwithstanding that it's only rated at 50gsm. The weight of 500 A5 sheets should be about 777g, but each pack adds at least 1kg to the gross weight for shipping charges calculations.

 

Eventually, after about a five-week wait, I saw why.

 

 

The paper was packaged so securely that it would be inconceivable for it to arrive damaged either by impact or by moisture. Good job! But is the quality of the paper worth all that protection?

 

Trying to pull a couple of sheets out of the pack, without releasing the whole ream from the inner cellophane bag, wasn't easy. Nevertheless, maybe it's an advantage of this being cut to A5 size, it felt less fiddly to handle than loose sheets of Tomoe River 52gsm, which I only have in A4 size.

 

I was primarily interested in how much feathering and bleed-through there would be, after seeing this question on Reddit, and had (and still have) no intention of giving the product a full review. So, I just grabbed a few inks I'd already transferred to squeeze bottles with blunt needle attachments, and dumped a drop of each onto the test sheet from about a metre above and watched it go splat. I then ‘drew’ on it using a fine calligraphy brush, with an ink I've been meaning to open up and test. As an afterthought, I also used a Pilot Iro-utsushi dip pen to write on the sheet with the same ink.

 

Finally, I just pulled a few inked pens from my A5 notebook holder's pocket, and scribbled a few lines with each, primarily to test the feathering aspect of the question.

 

 

Testing the show-through was entirely an afterthought. I hadn't even noticed the claim made on the product label, until I was getting photos and scans ready for this post, and looking at the photo of the label more closely.

 

The results speak for themselves:

 

Photos of both sides of the test sheet

 

(Yes, I can see sheen from Platinum Carbon Black ink when I glance at the writing obliquely. Not so much from Sailor Seiboku, except where I'd dotted my i's; but then, my Sailor TUZU writes quite dryly — the way I like it.)

 

 

Scans of both sides of the test sheet

 

Fragments of the scanned image uploaded at the original resolution of 300dpi,

to show any feathering as candidly as I can reasonably manage

 

No feathering, no bleed-through from writing with a fountain pen, and show-through or ghosting is very minor even when the background is bright white (such as the underside of the flatbed scanner's flip-top cover). Very impressive indeed.

 

I can actually see myself using this paper for drawing or ink testing/swatching because it is fun. That said, I'm oh-so-slightly disappointed that, for a paper this resistant to feathering, bleed-through and show-through, the apparent line widths produced by all the fountain pens I used are broader than I expected.

This is still a nice "mini review" @A Smug Dill mind if I ask the details og cost and where you bought this as we're both from Aus I think I should be paaying the same rate.

[AndyLogan]

1 hour ago, A Smug Dill said:

I ordered myself a ream of Crena 星火紙 (Spark paper) in A5 size, out of sheer curiosity. I never liked (‘old’) Tomoe River 52gsm paper because I find it too fiddly, and ready to crease if you so much as look at it funny; hence I gave away more sheets of it as samples than I've actually used for writing myself in years past. So, I wasn't really expecting all that much joy from this paper, but it's cheaper… at face value, anyway. International shipping for the paper, even by slow boat from China, adds quite a few dollars to the marginal cost per ream, notwithstanding that it's only rated at 50gsm. The weight of 500 A5 sheets should be about 777g, but each pack adds at least 1kg to the gross weight for shipping charges calculations.

 

Eventually, after about a five-week wait, I saw why.

 

 

The paper was packaged so securely that it would be inconceivable for it to arrive damaged either by impact or by moisture. Good job! But is the quality of the paper worth all that protection?

 

Trying to pull a couple of sheets out of the pack, without releasing the whole ream from the inner cellophane bag, wasn't easy. Nevertheless, maybe it's an advantage of this being cut to A5 size, it felt less fiddly to handle than loose sheets of Tomoe River 52gsm, which I only have in A4 size.

 

I was primarily interested in how much feathering and bleed-through there would be, after seeing this question on Reddit, and had (and still have) no intention of giving the product a full review. So, I just grabbed a few inks I'd already transferred to squeeze bottles with blunt needle attachments, and dumped a drop of each onto the test sheet from about a metre above and watched it go splat. I then ‘drew’ on it using a fine calligraphy brush, with an ink I've been meaning to open up and test. As an afterthought, I also used a Pilot Iro-utsushi dip pen to write on the sheet with the same ink.

 

Finally, I just pulled a few inked pens from my A5 notebook holder's pocket, and scribbled a few lines with each, primarily to test the feathering aspect of the question.

 

 

Testing the show-through was entirely an afterthought. I hadn't even noticed the claim made on the product label, until I was getting photos and scans ready for this post, and looking at the photo of the label more closely.

 

The results speak for themselves:

 

Photos of both sides of the test sheet

 

(Yes, I can see sheen from Platinum Carbon Black ink when I glance at the writing obliquely. Not so much from Sailor Seiboku, except where I'd dotted my i's; but then, my Sailor TUZU writes quite dryly — the way I like it.)

 

 

Scans of both sides of the test sheet

 

Fragments of the scanned image uploaded at the original resolution of 300dpi,

to show any feathering as candidly as I can reasonably manage

 

No feathering, no bleed-through from writing with a fountain pen, and show-through or ghosting is very minor even when the background is bright white (such as the underside of the flatbed scanner's flip-top cover). Very impressive indeed.

 

I can actually see myself using this paper for drawing or ink testing/swatching because it is fun. That said, I'm oh-so-slightly disappointed that, for a paper this resistant to feathering, bleed-through and show-through, the apparent line widths produced by all the fountain pens I used are broader than I expected.

This is still a nice "mini review" @A Smug Dill mind if I ask the details og cost and where you bought this as we're both from Aus I think I would be paying the same rate.

[A Smug Dill]

2 hours ago, AndyLogan said:

This is still a nice "mini review" @A Smug Dill mind if I ask the details og cost and where you bought this as we're both from Aus I think I should be paaying the same rate.

 

The rate(s) should be the same, but the out-of-pocket cost at the end of the day will be different.

 

I ordered it from the presumably official Crena Stationery Store (Crena文具商店, the same store name as in the octagon on the product label) on Taobao. I don't think there are other retail channels available for the product outside of China, although there are multiple sellers on the platform carrying various Crena paper products.

 

The list price for the 500-sheet ream of A5 has been fairly consistently CNY ¥75, before:

• for-a-limited-time-only seller ‘vouchers’, Taobao promotional campaign discounts, etc.
• application of Taobao ‘coins’ to offset the order amount
• GST
• (GST inclusive) shipping charges, which will be very significant no matter the shipping method‡ chosen
  • I suspect the nominal item weight specified in the system by the seller is different for official direct post by sea and official direct post by air; it looks to me it's around 1.6kg for dispatch by sea, and 1.25kg for dispatch by air, even if it makes no logical sense for the item weight to be specifically differently
• (‘overseas’) credit card processing charges levied by Alipay

and you can also assume Taobao won't give you the best currency exchange rate to AUD, but don't have the choice of paying in CNY and let your credit card provider do the currency exchange in-house either.

 

This ream cost me over A$25. Expect to pay around A$30 for a ream, unless you really know your way on Taobao, and the planets align for you.

 

 

‡ The amounts in the image, linked for the purpose of illustration only, do not correspond to shipping charges for this particular product, although the rates used in the shipping charges framework are the same as for my order.