Quick Review – A7-Sized Fountain Pen Friendly Envelopes

One of my favorite ways to use a fountain pen is to write letters. You may have seen my previous post about heavyweight fountain-pen-friendly envelopes, but that’s only one size of envelope (A6) that fits A5-sized paper. Many writing paper comes in a B5 size, which doesn’t easily fit in an A6 envelope. So, I went out and got some A7 envelopes that fit B5 paper. Let’s take a look at them and see if they’re worth buying.

Fountain Pen Friendly Envelopes

As I mentioned in my last envelope review, having fountain pen friendly envelopes isn’t nearly as important as having fountain pen friendly paper, but it’s still a nice thing to have. The last envelopes I bought ended up working very well with fountain pens, but didn’t come in an A7 size, so I had to go find a new brand.

After a bit of searching I settled on some A7-sized self-seal envelopes. Don’t forget, envelope sizing doesn’t follow paper sizing, so whereas moving from A6 to A7 in paper means your sheet is smaller, in envelopes it is actually bigger. I used this envelope sizing chart as a reference when deciding what size I needed.

Testing Out The Envelopes

Testing out the envelopes is as easy as using a variety of fountain pens and inks on them and seeing what happens. While I can’t test every combination of nib and ink, I did use what I had currently inked so that (hopefully) any issues would become apparent. Here is what my test envelope looked like when I was done with it:

In general, the inks look good. There is a bit of bleeding with some inks, notably saturated inks in wet pens and the Platinum Carbon Black. This is unfortunate, as it is what I usually use to address my envelopes in case they get wet. Still, it’s not really enough to keep me from using it. Looking inside, there wasn’t much bleeding, so if you address your envelope with a letter inside, you shouldn’t have to worry about any ink bleeding through onto your letter.

The manufacturer claims that you will not be able to see through the envelopes and “your privacy will be protected”. The paper that is used is 120 gsm, so it should help prevent what’s inside from easily being seen. Still, I was able to read a single-page letter if I held it up to a bright light source. These aren’t privacy envelopes, but they do offer some degree of privacy during casual handling.

Conclusion

While they’re not going to be nearly as nice as the paper inside of them, these envelopes are, for the most part, fountain pen friendly. If you use a lot of B5-sized writing paper then you’ll definitely want to get some A7-sized envelopes. I feel like these are a good value and should work for all but the most picky of writers.