Is plain white 16 lb. bond paper still sold anywhere?

Factual Questions
1

Normal, average copy and printer paper these days seems to be mostly 20 lb. Most of the stuff labeled “high quality” is 24 lb., and you can find 28 or even 32 lb. weights for color printers or in the “fine paper” section. (Note that these weight designations are only meaningful for bond paper; “text” or “cover” are the same thickness at different stated weights.) Normal, ruled notebook filler paper, on the other hand, is usually 16 lb. paper.

I believe you *used *to be able to buy reams of plain white 16 lb. copy paper, sometime in the last 25 years or so, because I remember working at places that specifically avoided it, as it tended to make for more paper jams on high-volume printers and copiers.

I have a special project for which it would be very nice to use lightweight paper on our current home printer. I think our printer can handle it, because once when we ran out of normal paper, I used up some old flimsy college looseleaf without problems.

I still see references to 16 lb. bond paper, but I can’t for the life of me find any for sale, except as small memo sheets, as ruled looseleaf, or in bound pads. I can’t use vellum; it needs to be non-translucent.

My only lead so far is U.S. Federal Seal Watermark Paper, which, aside from having a U.S. Federal Seal Watermark on it that I don’t want, seems to require setting up an account, presumably as a govt. contractor.

Help?

2

That’s probably the answer right there. a high-speed printer 25 years ago is a home office grade printer today.

As the market has advanced to faster and faster printers and copiers, people won’t happily tolerate jams caused by thin paper, so nobody’s going to buy it. It looks like the only 16lb printer paper out there comes in rolls for use in Epson’s inkjet printers for printing banners.

3

::sobs::

So… nobody has any nice old vintage 16 lb. plain white bond in their basement to sell me?

Honestly, I’m thinking of buying a bound pad and ripping off pages one by one before stacking to feed into our printer.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

4

Hunt around on ebay. Better if you’re not in a hurry.

I believe Mead Typing Paper is 16 lb, and it’s still sold at various school supply stores and other online outlets.

I can’t find a cite to prove that it’s 16 lb. I know from experience that it’s less than the standard 20 lb weight for printer paper.
http://www.intagoal.com/paper/typing/paper-typing-8-12-x-11-100-ct.html

5

A ream of 16 lb paper would likely be 15-20+ years old, and unless it was a very low acid paper (somewhat unlikely for cheap copy paper) it might not be in the best shape at this point even if you could find some.

6

Well, I found some for sale, but the seller only ships to Canada, and US customers are referred to OfficeMax. If you’re in Canada or have the means to receive something that gets shipped there, the product is “Boise X-9”, which comes in 20 lb, 24 lb, and the magical 16 lb. The product number from Boise’s website is “OX9161”.

Or, if Canada’s not an option, OfficeMax does carry the Boise X-9 paper in the other weights, so you might try contacting them and seeing if they can make a special order of the 16 lb stuff for you. Can’t hurt to ask.

7

<hijack>
I apologize for intruding because I don’t have any helpful suggestions (and yes, I looked – there’s a lot out there, but it all seems to be ruled and mostly 3 hole punched), but I was just curious what type of project would make this lighter paper so much better.

And yes, I am aware it’s NOMFB :slight_smile:

Thanks!
</hijack>

8

I used to work in a related industry. There are paper specialty stores that will sell this kind of stuff. If you don’t want to buy a ream, then you might have to pay an extra fee or go to a different sort of retailer. If you let me know where you are (up hieah doesn’t help much) then I might be able to provide you some leads.

9

Check with Dunder-Mifflin.

10

Can you use scratch paper in a printer? This comes in pads, so you’ll probably have to tear each one out. But it seems to be what you’re looking for.

11

Seriously, check with a couple of local printers. Find out if there is a local store where they get their paper. These stores may or may not sell to the public, but they tend to have a dizzying array of papers that most regular folks don’t think about or know that they exist. A big chain in the Southeast is Mac Papers. If you only need a few sheets they might even be willing to give you some samples for free.

12

I’m in Maine, near Portsmouth, NH. And a ream would be perfect. I just don’t want a whole carton.

Thanks for the lovely detailed info. I may call OfficeMax; Canada is not within easy driving distance.

Pshaw. I have lots of stuff I wrote on 16 lb. cheap notebook filler paper from the 70s and 80s that is not noticeably fragile. Maybe in another twenty or thirty years, though.

Oh! Duh! But of course!

Oooh, cool, I’ll go look for some.

You can, and I have, and I might again, but you tend to get more jams because the process of tearing the pages from the backing warps them a little.

:cool: mremilyforce and I are taking a trip to the Middle East this fall, for three weeks total. He made the thoughtful suggestion yesterday that I think about some kind of eBook to take, as he knows that a) I’ll have some time to kill while he’s presenting a paper at a conference and collecting research data (he’s in linguistics); b) it will be a strange and unfamiliar place at times, and my #1 self-soothing strategy is reading, preferably science fiction. Not much sci-fi in English to be had in the local shops there, and there’s a strict weight limit on baggage, so… what to do?

I have a broken Rocketbook (:frowning: RIP, dear Rocketbook) and would love to be able to afford a Kindle, and I may just load up one of the superannuated laptops we have around here with PDFs, or something. But it occurred to me that I could print up something very densely (I can read 7-point type easily, and who needs margins?) and get it spiral-coil bound at a Kinko’s. I’ve done something similar for backpacking trips in the past. I can fit the entire Sherlock Holmes collection – 500,000+ words – on 93 sheets of paper, for instance.

Then it occurred to me that I could have 20% more pages if I used 16 lb. paper instead of 20 lb. paper! Yeah, OK, so it’s not that big a deal…

Really, I love paper and making things with it. Having many different kinds to choose from on hand, just in case the muse speaks to me, is like having treasure, ya know? And I love a hunt for a particular perfect thing that helps solve a problem.

Thanks, everyone – you people are great.

13

Way cool indeed :smiley:

How about something like this?

14

I just looked in my product book for my local paper store (I own a copy shop) and they do have the Boise X9 paper available in the 16# weight. This is in Southern California so you do still have hope on it. Just do what someone else said and see if you have a paper store/printer supply store in your area.

15

Sadly the search engine on that site is not very particular. The only actual 16 lb. paper listed there has lines on it.

However! Belowjob2.0’s brilliant suggestion is even more brilliant than I had hoped! It turns out that Mead Typing Paper may actually be *15 *lb. weight. I am going to order some from here, because that site purportedly has 114 boxes of it in stock. The Mead website makes no mention of that product at all, and several online shops that claim to have it look like dusty, semi-abandoned merchant-sharing false front type places. I think it may be a discontinued product.

16

You’d be surprised. I’ve worked with a lot of old paper in one of my jobs and I’m surprised at the types that survive. Onion skin does well, especially the textured stuff, sixty-year-old legal pads still look pretty good, typing and notebook paper lasts well as long as it’s dry. The old-style paper that people typed carbon copies on is horrible, turns itself and any other paper touching it a nice shade of acid brown. Telegrams are very acidic. Photostats don’t last at all. They don’t copy well, either.

17

Is 16 lb paper still sold? YES Office Max now carries Boise X-9 16 lb multipurpose paper. They only listed it on their website by single reams, but I am assured by a senior paper manager that the cases will be available on their website soon.

I have purchased and tested this paper and it is the same weight as the old Boise Cascade 16 lb paper. It is however a brighter white for better contrast.

I ordered through a local store for home delivery and got excellent service.

16 lb paper is BACK! :slight_smile:

18

There is also onion skin paper, at about 9lb which you might consider looking at.

19

Sorry to continue the hijack, and I haven’t done the math on this, so I could be totally wrong, but wouldn’t a bottom run e-reader be about as cheap as printing out a few hundred pages of dense type? (plus a whole lot lighter, and capable of storing much more)

20

It depends a lot on how it has been stored. Heat, light and air are the most damaging. I have some wrapped bond and book papers in my semi-climate controlled, dark basement that are 30 years old and look almost new.

Why do I still have them? I might need some of a certain size, color or texture tomorrow! :slight_smile: