Review: G. Lalo Verge de France Deckle-Edged Correspondence Set

It's time for another Exaclair product review from all the goodies I got this summer!

Here we have the G. Lalo Verge de France Deckle-Edged Correspondence Set in blue. It comes with 10 cards and 10 tissue-lined envelopes. You can see full product information here, but the way the catalog is done in some weird animation programming (flash?) makes me dizzy and I find it hard to read. (Wha' happened to the good old PDF pages?)



My husband used one of these before I did, for a short thank-you note, and his conclusion is that they are perfect for just that purpose... or, he said, for a letter where you have very little to say. I concur about the thank-you note length - short and sweet, but obviously paper of high quality and good craftsmanship.



Here it is with my beloved letter-opener; don't they look nice together? You can see the edges have a pattern to them, hence the "deckle-edged" title, on both the envelope and the card itself. The stock is nice and thick, akin to card stock, and as with all G. Lalo papers, it is exquisite with fountain pens. I don't think you could bleed through this puppy if you tried, and I've never experienced any feathering. (This is not my first time buying these - I've used them before.)



I hope this shot lets you see the gentle texture of the laid finish. It's almost like tiny raised lines, but I don't find it at all distracting. If you have trouble writing in a straight horizontal line, the laid surface can assist as a guide. I've used very fine nibs on these and not had a problem with the texture. Here you can also get a nice close look at the fine tissue lining in the envelope.



Finally, you can see a blank card with the envelope.

These are 3.25 x 5.25 inches, and my pack has 10 cards and envelopes with a retial price of $9. I'd rate that a very good value, at less than $1 per card, for some very high quality stationery.

G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack: Pistache / Green

In my continuing saga of Exaclair product sample reviews, I give you the G. Lalo Bordered Card Pack, shown here in Pistache / Green.



The set comes wrapped in cellophane, with the G. Lalo logo embossed in gold on the band that holds them all together so prettily.



The paper texture on the cards and envelopes is laid, or slightly textured/lined. On the cards it is straight/horizontal, and on the envelopes it has a lovely diagonal slant. The envelopes are lined with nice, crinkly white tissue liner.

Although I am a big fan of green, I don't tend to like pastels, and this one seems to have a lot of orange/brown undertones with a kind of washed-out feel. Would I have chosen this off the shelf? No. But it's still an enjoyable experience to write a note on it. Actually, contemplating the color... for you ink-nuts out there, perhaps the new Noodler's V-mail GI Green would be a match. I hear it has some funky orange undertones and edges to it. (Sorry, inside ink joke there for those of us that follow new Noodler's inks and their funky behaviors... maybe just a bit too closely.)



Of course how it behaves with fountain pen ink is one of my primary considerations, so here you can see a closeup (and if you want even closer, view large). I used a Sheaffer Agio fountain pen with a fine nib, carrying Noodler's Hunter Green ink. This ink doesn't exactly harmonize with the shade of green on the border, but oh well. At least the ink is waterproof. It behaved beautifully on the paper - quick drying, no hint of feathering.



The envelopes are so elegant and beautiful - thick and weighty, but not too much so - that they hardly need anything else... but this peacock wanted to go along for the ride.

Though there was no price on this pack of cards, my research direct from the Exaclair website indicates these retail for $13 and come in packs of 10. (You can purchase them at Distinctive Stationery.) I am generally loathe to pay more than $1 per card unless it's something spectacular, and this is a little too understated for my definition of spectacular, so I probably wouldn't buy them. But, they're still lovely and I'll enjoy using them.

Clairefontaine Pollen small flat cards

My first Exaclair goodie review shall be the Pollen small flat cards. These are the 5 x 3.25 size in light grey. (The fountain pen shown is a Sailor Ballerie XF, quite a slim pen.)



I hope in this photo you can see that the envelopes have a self-adhesive closure; pull off the wax backing, and they'll seal themselves. I have no idea why they do this, but it's kind of nice. The paper weight is heavy but not cumbersome, and it's no surprise that it takes fountain pen ink beautifully. (I've not met a Clairefontaine paper that doesn't.)



Since the marketing copy on the envelope notes that stamping is one of the intended purposes, I thought a rubber stamp was in order. This went to a cat lover, so of course I got catty with it. Indeed the card did take the stamped image beautifully. The ink shown is Private Reserve Blue Suede (riding in the Ballerie that you saw above), which is normally a very smeary, slow-drying ink. I am pleased to report that it dried more quickly on this paper than on my beloved Clairefontaine standby, the Triomphe writing tablet. The Pollen is not as smooth as the Triomphe, but I'd hardly call it toothy. I'd say this is great stuff for stamping. I didn't photograph it for a review, but in using the larger Pollen notecards, I stamped those with a different stamp, and it also did quite well.



I hope this photo of the envelope can show you a fairly accurate portrayal of the light grey color, in contrast to the white border on the Memo stamp. (Yes, Memo is another one of my cats.) Actually the color is my biggest complaint here. Normally I am a grey fan, but this grey is just kind of boring. Instead of having any color tones or depth, it looks like a dingy cream. I swear to you that the back of my package says "light grey," but in the Pollen color listing on the Exaclair page, I see no light grey - only pearl grey, dark grey and silver. I think this must be pearl grey, it says 88 next to that color name and the label of my package also has an 88 on it. The dark grey looks too dark for me, so I can only hope the silver is a little more interesting. But I think the only colors I would choose would be ivory or white; I prefer to show off the color of a fountain pen ink and not let the color of the paper get in the way. Oh yes, this cat rubber stamp is an Edward Gorey cat.



The back of the envelope sports a second impression from the same Gorey cat stamp inking, plus a photo sticker of my cat Magic making one of her many charming faces (and sticking out her little pink kitty tongue). I do like the cut of the envelope, or the fold, or the pattern - whatever you call the way the pieces fit together in the back. And this envelope is certainly sturdy; again, not unwieldy, but should stand up well in any postal service handling.

Also, the paper and envelope are both sturdy enough to stand up to some interesting crafting options. I wouldn't hesitate to use glitter glue, spray glimmer mist, or do things a bit more hearty or "wet" to it.

Overall my impressions of this are quite positive. I enjoy writing on it, and am pleased that it takes ink so well, but is thick enough never to show through. Granted, I used an extra-fine nib to write, so if I have any bleeding or different results with a medium nib, I will be sure to report that... but I really doubt I'd ever see bleeding on Clairefontaine.

Oh yes - the retail price is $5 for 5 flat cards and envelopes - not a bad deal at all, I'd say.

Exaclair samples, many reviews coming

The Bastille Day offer on the Quo Vadis blog, an opportunity for their blog readers to request and sample any red or blue J. Herbin fountain pen ink, seems generous, oui? So I said, what the heck, I'll probably never buy one but I'm up for sampling the Eclat de Saphir blue ink, after it looked so nice in Biffybeans' review back in October. (I've seen it in a few letters, too, and thought the color looked pretty groovy.) The very generous Karen at Exaclair offered to put together a nice package for me including some papers to review, since they were sending me the ink anyway. She even asked for, and honored, my color preferences - waaaay cool. But man, I didn't expect such a boon in a box! I am not going to do the math on this, but this is a lot of money's worth in some very fine stationery.

As you probably know if you've been reading my blog for a while, or reading my letters, I am already a big fan of Clairefontaine and G. Lalo papers. Good stuff. But Karen did a fantastic job of sending me some of their products that I haven't tried before.

As the lovely Miss Soda must be present for any unpacking of a glorious cardboard box, she joined the photo shoot to help display these products. (I can't help noting that her loveliness is sitting next to my hands, just in front of my keyboard, purring melodiously as I type. I love this cat.)



I promise, when I actually review each of these items individually, I will get their names right and provide full links. For the time being, I'll tell you that from Clairefontaine we have some Pollen stationery in grey, in two sizes (a larger notecard and a smaller flat card), and a little red wire-bound spiral notebook. From J. Herbin there is the promised Eclat de Saphir blue fountain pen ink. From G. Lalo, a tablet of Verge de France paper in ivory with matching lined envelopes (the cover of this tablet is what is glittering gold in the top photo of the items still packaged in a box - cooool; I capture glitter totally inadvertently), Mode de Paris boxed flat cards, small blue flat cards with lined envelopes, and green-bordered flat cards with green envelopes.



Now I'm just shamelessly showing you more photos from different angles, just to show off how cute Soda is when she inspects my new stationery items. (Oh yes - that's my happy gin and tonic in the corner.)



It's official: Soda approves. (That's her "I'm so happy I'm purring with my eyes closed" smile, which is kind of freaky in photos because it makes her eyes look like they disappear.)

Stay tuned - each of these fine stationery products will get a review in the coming weeks. I'll give a spoiler already and say I'm liking the Eclat de Saphir a lot better than I expected.