Serious Problems with Regalia Paper: Endless Observer Part 2

[@thewetpen]

UPDATE (July 9, 2023): I heard from Endless today, after asking about the root of this problem. Here's what they said: "From what we’ve understood it was a specific to a machine + temperature + coating issue that went down. We’re unable to recreate the problem now and all the recent products have been good. So we’re constantly on the lookout to see if the problem gets repeated." It's great to hear that they have a good idea of the source of the problem, and more importantly, that they've been testing to make sure that it doesn't happen again. I guess the next step for me will be to buy another Observer from someplace that I can be assured has new stock and see if it's any better.

[@CIRCLEDARK]

I had the same problems with Regalia paper in a Recorder (although I didn't look for the freckling). They replaced it with a sealed / fresh / new notebook last week, and the replacement was identically bad. Based on this, I can't see this being an isolated problem. The lines spread like crazy, there is some feathering, and the bleed through is really bad. I pretty much done with Endless Regalia at this point. To their credit, customer service was very responsive and polite. That being said, I informed them the replacement was no better than the first one... and they have failed to respond at all thus far to two separate emails.

[@thewetpen]

@@CIRCLEDARK Just today I got a box from Endless that is supposed to have a new batch of paper, so I'm excited to try it out... though I probably won't have a chance for a few days. I'll post my findings in a video, of course.

[@Inazarab]

@@thewetpen Looking forward to that. I wonder how much of the old stock is still out there and how long it will be until it's been refreshed.

[@thewetpen]

TO BE CLEAR: This is not a problem with ALL Regalia paper, just the Regalia paper in my new Endless Observer notebook (and I've now heard from others who have had the same problem with their Observer notebooks). Expect the paper in Recorder notebooks that are out there on the market to be just as good as mine was, originally.

[@thewetpen]

I haven't spoken to Endless recently, but this is the last that I heard, as of Feb.4th, 2023: "We are still working with the mill to figure out what might have gone wrong, because we’ve tested all the paper we have in stock across batches and they work perfectly. We are still checking if it was something in the print process that might have caused some issue. As of this moment, with any disgruntled customer, we’re offering a refund. But we will get to it asap."

[@jonahturner2969]

Thanks for the update, will you put out another video if they get back with an update again? I'd love to see you test out the storyboards!!

[@thewetpen]

@@jonahturner2969 My guess is that they're not going to get back to me again. I've sent two or three messages now that have gone unanswered, so it seems that they've had enough of me :-) But yes... if I get some new updates and some new paper to test, I'll certainly do another video.

[@dimitrisdafnopoulos3736]

@@thewetpen I have send them also photos of their Recorder with regalia and never answered me. And I paid 24 € for it and will go to the garbage. I don't think it's a serious company , just cheesy quotes...

[@llchapman1234]

Disgruntled? Makes us all sound like grumpy grandpas shouting at kids to get off their lawn, rather than smart consumers who expect a modicum of quality cintrol.

[@ThatLoganChick000]

I’ve had the same issues of freckling (great term), bleed through, and feathering in my Creative Block, enough so as to make me not want to use the Recorder I got at the same time. And I’ve made an effort to make a comment about the problems I’ve seen with the paper on every positive review of Endless paper products, because I think the community should be aware that there are consistency problems. Reviewers have been so positive and embraced the Regalia paper, but my experience was just so disappointing.

[@thewetpen]

Hi Rebecca, if your experience was like mine was with the Observer, I'd understand why you were so disappointed! That's one of the tricky downsides of being a reviewer... you can only review what you actually experience. I guess that if this has been a problem all along, it's probably a good thing that I got a bad one so that I can see it for myself.

[@DaedalusGage]

This is really superb work! I'd been noticing this same problem towards the bottom of my own Endless Recorder paper: I'd been using a page from the back to demonstrate a series of inks to a local brick and mortar shop I was hoping would start carrying the paper. I never gave it to them because I hadn't sorted out what was going on. Now I get why the page is behaving so differently between the bottom and the rest... 's a pity because I just bought quite a bit more (like the way it sheens).

[@thewetpen]

Thanks Brian :-) I hadn't really noticed any issues at the bottom of my Recorder pages; I guess I just don't use the bottom line or two very often, so I was surprised when I tested that Birmingham ink in the previous video on the Recorder and found that it feathered and bled there, too... but it was only because it was the bottom of the page, I think. I still love the paper in my Recorder... as long as I know what to expect at the bottom of the page, it's not a huge loss. But I hope they get things right and make it perform uniformly in the future.

[@jamesaritchie1]

I haven't had any issues at all with Recorder paper, but I just write on paper. Swatches just seem silly to me, even for artists. That's why they make art paper. I do keep an illustrated journal, but I keep it on appropriate art paper. I find it infinitely easier to write on art paper than it is to draw or paint on writing paper. I just write on recorder paper, and it has always behaved perfectly.

[@DaedalusGage]

​@@thewetpen There are a lot of great qualities to this paper, when things come out the way they intend. I'll be honest, despite the setback, I'm still rooting for them to get it sorted out.

[@websmink]

Again; the quality of the video, the close-ups when they are warranted, and everything about your content… Very high quality and the most practical and helpful videos I have watched.

[@philnaunton7181]

This is extremely interesting. And, judging from listener responses, seemingly not an isolated batch issue. I hope that Quality Control is or will quickly become aware of this rather damning issue. Years ago I used to be a Customer Service Representative for a company marketing quality printing paper. Issues of this nature are VERY expensive to warranty, and tend to snowball rapidly.

[@5t4n5]

Someone's been cutting corners on the sizing. Not sizing as in the width and height, but sizing as in the stuff that makes the paper waterproof. Maybe a bad batch of whatever they use to size their paper. If they're ramping up production then maybe they went to other suppliers who supplied substandard sizing agent. But at the end of the day, this should have been picked up by quality control. There's simply no excuse for a company charging so much for their paper to not quality check each batch.

[@thewetpen]

My thoughts exactly!

[@TymberJ]

I love Endless and Regalia paper, but the freckling you saw in the Recorder matches my experience. I've been using a Regalia Recorder as a planner for several months, and write up to the edges on almost every page. There are parts of the margins that perform badly -- it feels like an entire signature worth will have the same misbehaving spots. At first I assumed it was oils from fingers/hands, but I get it even on fresh pages where I've been very careful to protect with blotter paper. In the Recorder, it's an inconsistency that knocks it down to "only" a 9/10 for me. But I wouldn't be happy if the majority of each page was off like this. I hope we hear from them one way or another, it seems like a significant quality control problem as other Observer reviews call this out too.

[@TheRealJanKafka]

Thanks for the video. I'll be avoiding any products from this company.

[@AeroInkWolf7]

Correction: The pilot iroshiku yama-budo does feather. My experience with it with Muji loose paper shows that it does feather, especially close to the edges of the paper. It is not like X-feather by Noodler's, which is the true king in anti-feathering.

[@thewetpen]

I'm certainly not saying that it will never feather on any paper under any circumstances. I am saying that it behaves like a normal fountain pen ink, and on an average, fountain-pen friendly paper (I just tested on Rhodia with the same pen), it doesn't feather.

[@Inazarab]

Any ink will feather on cheap paper, x-feather included. But on high quality fountain pen friendly papers Yama-budo won’t feather. In general iroshizuku inks are some of the best behaved on the market, even if they’re not the most fun.

[@ilikepens]

I’m going to have to check my regalia paper to see if it does this.

[@thewetpen]

I'll be curious to hear what you find 🙂

[@roxiesossa3210]

Hey Matthew, great work. I've noticed feathering spots on my recorder notebooks - not a ton and not on every page which is interesting - but enough for a $20+ notebook. Thanks for putting this together.

[@thewetpen]

Hey Roxie! That's interesting. I couldn't get any sort of feathering on my Recorder until I discovered that it feathers at the very bottom of the page. The Recorder still isn't in daily use, though, so maybe I'll find it here and there at some point, too.

[@roxiesossa3210]

@@thewetpen Yeah but I'm not writing any novels in it so it's ok 😄 - just something I noticed on a few pages which I attributed it to the ink. And who knows? It may very well be the ink. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I haven't conducted any tests - just fairly sure based on using the same pen and ink over multiple pages. Overall, I still like the paper. Certainly things to look out for though.

[@danielarnis]

My Endless Observer notebook (bought 12, 2023) is an absolute mess. In addition to the freckles, the bleed makes this notebook so frustrating. I can't abide ditching an empty notebook so I am forcing myself to use it up, but It's unfortunate. I have a Yu-Sari notebook waiting in the wings I am very excited about.

[@pepperpath]

Excellent observation! 🙏

[@dimitrisdafnopoulos3736]

I have the same problem with Regalia paper in Recorder. Bleeding in all of my inks. It's defective for sure. We should sent this issue to Endlessl company. I had tested in store another Recorder and it had no problem. So they have QA control issue.

[@edwardrutledge2765]

I buy loose sheets, not a regular journal, planner user, and Tomoe River, Cosmo Lite, with occasional flirtation in Yamamoto options customary. I’d shy away from this until an “all clear” is announced.

I had this same problem when using watercolours in paper that is not up to it. Given these inks are water-soluble I assume it's the same phenomenon. Thanks for the video! Very interesting and informative.

[@TymberJ]

I think so -- even on watercolor paper that's usually good, sometimes the sizing will be patchy, and especially the freckling on the bottom of the Recorder page looks the same here.

[@EFNIR]

Matthew, were you able to inform Endless of your test results? (Just curious if you know whether they know, if you know what I mean. 😉 )

[@thewetpen]

Yes and no. They originally sent me the notebook to review after contacting me via Instagram. I mentioned some initial problems a few days ago on Instagram, but I don't think that they've seen my more recent comments on Instagram (mentioning this video) yet. But they will.

[@EFNIR]

@@thewetpen Thanks, Matthew! Good to know. I'm sure once they know about it, they'll do their own testing and address the issue. Appreciate you sharing the results of your testing with us.

[@dr.d723]

Excellent review! Thank you for taking the time to do this!

[@llchapman1234]

Thanks for catching this problem for those of us who haven't spent our hard earned money on this product yet.

[@thewetpen]

My pleasure :-) For what it's worth, it's really good paper, when there's no defect... probably one of my favorites. It's worth the risk, for me 🙂

[@CorneliusBartke]

A possible cause for freckling (I like that term) could be a fault with the sizing, either due to a non-uniform dispersion of the agent or (in case of surface sizing) during application. Do the freckles appear in the same region across all signatures in the notebook or do they vary across signatures?

[@thewetpen]

On the Observer, I've swatched pages from the front of the book and back and a couple of places in between (the signatures are only 5 sheets each), and on those pages from top to bottom, and the freckles are pretty uniform, but not perfectly... it does seem that there are some areas that are slightly worse than others. On the Recorder, I've only experienced freckles at the bottom of the page, and not always there.

[@CorneliusBartke]

@@thewetpen Interesting, I have no idea how only the "bottom part" would be sized differently, maybe an issue with the rollers. The failure mode that results in more or less consistent freckeles all over the page is easier to explain. I remember a "bad batch" of Tomoe River 68gsm white that had feathering issues (2016?) due to insufficient sizing and one situation (earlier, 2012?) that turned to be nearly-unsized paper (it was on-spec but the wrong spec had been ordered). Those looked similarly splotchy.

[@thewetpen]

@@CorneliusBartke Yes, my assumption was that it was something like rollers that were affecting either the application of the sizing on the paper in the Recorder, or they were damaging it as the paper traveled through the manufacturing process. Guess I'll have to wait and see what the folks at Endless say, if anything.

[@samtansleyphotography]

I got the same sort of freckling effect with Mnemosyne paper, but only on certain pages, and only with Dominant Industry Forest. Very odd...

[@Volkmannx]

Interesting, thanks!

[@gristlevonraben]

I'm glad they are fixing the problem. most paper from India is basically pulp paper only. this is giving me hope that they are making a good difference. to be fair, most of our United States paper is pulp only paper. the reason is because its disposable note taking paper for class work. but when archiving, journalling, and making art paper for notebooks is pulp only, it is an insult and a cheat. you pay a higher price for a product that will deteriorate or not even work. I'm seriously thinking of inventing an ink that tests acid levels in the paper by changing color like test strips do.

[@camojoe83]

Idk, my favorite pen store still has TR filled notebooks by the ton. Looks like they have a dirty or scored roller in the finishing line at the factory.

[@thewetpen]

Yes, my problem is that I don't actually really like Tomoe River, which is why I've been looking for alternatives, and I really like Regalia paper, when it's not defective :-)

[@andyking7662]

I have had this exact same problem with the Endless Observer paper. I have a recorder that seems to have better paper...not sure what the quality control issues are. I bought my observer months ago when it first came out.

[@thewetpen]

I posted a new video about this a few weeks ago... you might find it interesting 🙂

[@UrbanHafner]

I have the same issue with the Regalia paper in the "creative block". But at least I saw your review before buying it and it wasn't a big surprise. ;)

[@thewetpen]

Endless is finally sending me some samples from their new production of Regalia paper, and they say that their issues are solved, so I'm looking forward to checking it out in a new video within the next couple of weeks. Hope the freckles don't bother you too much 🙂

[@UrbanHafner]

@@thewetpen Nah, all good. I knew what I was (potentially) getting into.

[@AndrewWertheimer]

Interesting video and discussion. I appreciate that you so examined the paper. I would be more tolerant if it was an exception or if it was cheaper than Japanese paper. There are many fine Japanese notebooks that are quality and affordable. Keep up the fine work. Aloha

[@chiragmanubhaishah743]

I bought the 2023 planner which has the same regalia paper. I haven't had the problems that are being discussed here, maybe because I don't use B/BB nibs. But the paper feels like a thick chart paper types and ink takes too long to dry. Despite using M nibs almost always.

[@thewetpen]

Hopefully that means that the problem is specific to the batch of paper used in the Observer. I use broad nibs, but medium pretty often, too.

[@KendallW]

Excellent quality video and very useful info. Thank you! Subscribed

[@MariaRosseau]

I'm having some issues like this with my Creative Block. :\ Fortunately I don't really care, because it's just a notepad that I usually use for tracking stuff in video games I'm playing. 😅 Of course I won't be buying more, because I prefer thinner paper in general. Great video! :)

[@jamesaritchie1]

Observer paper is just not good, but in fairness, when those "freckles" show up in the writing they can look pretty cool. Honestly, I really don't care how paper looks or behave with swatches. It's just meaningless to be. I write on paper, and that's it, so all I care about is whether paper feathers, ghosts, or bleeds with normal writing.

[@DaedalusGage]

You bring up a good point: the way the paper sheened was unusual in a lot of ways. Part of me is wondering if the freckles were a part of that. Going to go back and look.

[@jinseinogakuseiesq2724]

So there seems to be a property in the mixing of the pulp of the paper they use to get the 'speciality' of the kind of type of paper it is. this will be touted as the Dalmatian paper for now until they worked it out..... I wish moleskine worked on theirs....

[@thewetpen]

Dalmatian paper... I like it! 🙂

[@perfectplume]

Yes, indeed, I also have advanced freckles on Regalia paper !

[@thewetpen]

Ugh... sorry to hear it! Have you had it for a while, or is it a new purchase?

[@perfectplume]

It’s recent : I added a 2023 Regalia Planner to my cart because half the year has passed ( where did it go ??? ) and it was on sale - a steal at a little under $8.00. But the paper is really substandard. Still, some sheening inks really look great on the paper - freckles and all. Thanks for your wonderful reviews !

[@darkchocolate4643]

I'm a big fan of Endless (though I have a stash of Recorders with Tomoe River so I haven't used their Regalia paper yet) so I do hope that they have an explanation and a solution. On a slightly cheekier note: they were very quick to share your previous review through their newsletter. Curious to see if they'll send this video around too. 😃

[@thewetpen]

I finally just heard from Endless this morning (5:00AM, so I was not entirely awake), and we're going to discuss the matter further. They say that they're investigating, now.

[@darkchocolate4643]

@@thewetpen Excellent. I'm sure you'll keep us informed without me asking ;)

[@claytonsanders508]

I’m interested to see how they deal with the problem. I’m really rooting for their products to be successful because the good batches of Regalia paper are really fantastic!

[@thewetpen]

@@claytonsanders508 I'm right there with you... really hope that they get things sorted out and on top of things. I really liked Regalia, too.

[@mrmugen53]

@@thewetpen Sorry for the necro, but did anything come of this? Both my standard and large creative blocks along with the Observer are awful, are they doing replacements or anything?

[@paulmchugh1430]

This is a very good review. I was considering this paper but now will pass on it. I will keep looking for different paper. Right now I am considering paper made in Vietnam. Have you used it? If so, any recommendations?

[@thewetpen]

I haven't tried any papers from Vietnam, but if you know of a good one (or good possibility), pass it on! I'm always on the lookout :-)

[@thewetpen]

Incidentally, I should say that I'm still very happy with my Endless Recorder; the issues at the very bottom of the page are not significant for me, and the paper is excellent otherwise.

[@paulmchugh1430]

@@thewetpen apparently Staples sells a number of notebooks and journals with paper made in Vietnam. I will be investigating shortly.

[@thewetpen]

@@paulmchugh1430 There's one just down the hill from me... I'll have to check it out too 🙂

[@claytonsanders508]

Unfortunately, manufacturing paper is FAR more complex and detailed than most people understand. The machinery is very expensive and the materials usedapparently have to be extremely consistent. All of this is almost impossible for a small company to achieve and actually make money. Thus, Tomoe River = Dead. Cosmo Air light = Dead.

[@technoraptor7778]

It looks to be from the coating on the paper..the ink must be reacting with it or something to cause all those freckles.

[@thewetpen]

I think that what's happening is that where there are "freckles", the ink is soaking into the paper and spreading out, so it looks darker. When the ink dries, they freckles mostly disappear... but with these coated papers, the ink normally stays on top of the surface, so when it gets below the surface and into the paper fibers, it looks different.

[@technoraptor7778]

Yeah..like it's uneven coating on the paper...and the bottom isn't coated at all..the last lines on the paper you can see the clear separation.

[@animula6908]

Paying employees means refunds may not be practical, and I support that. Important to me, only that they prevent recurrence.

[@thewetpen]

Yes, refunds would probably be less likely than replacement notebooks with better paper, although wages in India are low enough and the prices of these notebooks high enough that the employees shouldn't be losing out either way.

[@catwhisperer911]

Yikes!