After a few months of learning about fountain pens, inks and paper, I finally decided to make the jump into some "premium" papers. I purchased some Rhodia R #16 lined pads and some correspondence size Tomoe River pads from Jay at Paperforfountainpens.com. My favorite letter writing pen is a Jinhao X750 with a 0.7mm cursive italic nib. I wrote 2 letters, one on each paper, with this pen and Noodler's Nightshade ink. The writing experience on both papers was fantastic. They were both smooth and performed really well. I did notice that the ink dry time on the Tomoe River was extremely long...as in it never dried. I wrote a page, then went to dinner with my wife. When I returned an hour and a half later, it was still wet in a lot of places. I blotted with a tissue the best I could, but there were still wet places after 2.5 hours. I live in Utah, so I don't believe that ambient humidity is an issue. I'm sure that the Noodler's ink is a problematic one, being so saturated and all, so I'm going to reserve judgment until I've tried other pen and ink combinations. I'm sure that I could dilute the Nightshade ink, and that would help the dry time, but it would also change the color, which is a deal breaker for me. As for right now, though, with my preferred pen/ink combination, the Rhodia R paper is the winner for me.
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