If you’ve ever wanted to view all of the Rhodia products currently available in the US, be sure to visit rhodiapads.com where you can also search for a local or online retailer.

Located in New York City, Exaclair is the exclusive US distributor for Rhodia products and also the other brands under the Clairefontaine umbrella which include: Clairefontaine, Quo Vadis, J. Herbin, Exacompta, G. Lalo, Brause, Mignon and Decopatch.

If you have questions concerning product availability in the US, you can submit your question here.

If you have questions about Rhodia products outside the US, please submit your question here.

It’s here! Time to roll our our first ever Rhodia Journal Swap: “Favorite Things.” Interested in participating? Read on, then please fill out the form below by Jan 18th. We’d love if you would share this opportunity with your friends! Questions? Please submit via comments. 

• 12 people will be chosen to participate and will each receive a large orange dotWebbie in which to create. You do not have to be an artist/writer to participate. This 1st swap will be open to US residents only. (Future swaps may be expanded outside the US)

• Each participant will create on a specified amount of pages within the book and then is responsible to package and mail each book to the next person on the list at monthly intervals. (USPS 1st class mail or Priority shipping is recommended at a cost of roughly $5-7 per book) The participant address list will be structured in a way that should allow the shortest shipping time (and cost) between each person. In the end, you will get back the book you started which will be packed with interesting things…
  

• The theme of the swap is “Favorite Things” and can be widely open to interpretation via: thoughts, ramblings, short stories, poems, lists, art, doodles, clippings, printed photos. We ask that content be safe for public consumption.

• There are 96 sheets (192 pages) in a large Webbie. Your minimum contribution in each book will be as follows: Fill 6 pages on one side. (Leaving the other side blank) Start something on 1 page to be completed by the next person, finish something on 1 page that the previous person started = 8 pages per person (6+1+1) x 12 = 96. You MAY fill 12 sheets (6 pages both sides) if you desire.

• Participants agree to scan/snap/snag/upload/tag images to a group Tumblr blog documenting their process which could include: content, you & your Rhodia, your creative process.

• You own all the rights to your original content in the books and on the web. By submitting images to the group blog, you grant us permission to share them (with attribution) to the Rhodia Drive Blog and also our Facebook page. We encourage you to share your content via your own blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc.

If you are reading this via e-mail or in certain feed readers, you may need to visit http://rhodiadrive.com/ to see the form.

This my friends, is brilliant. A bit insane, (I can’t imagine how much time this took!) but completely brilliant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received e-mails from people asking how to choose the nib on a fountain pen. Since all nibs widths are not created equal, Goulet Pens is now offering the ability to compare the nibs of 4 different fountain pens in their new Nib Nook interactive feature on their website. Goulet notes that the writing samples are all standardized using Noodler’s Black ink on 80g white Rhodia dotPad paper which is an excellent way to compare and contrast.

Being a notorious product reviewer myself, I must add my two cents to this process. What you must count on in this comparison, is all things being equal and IMHO, there are inevitably going to be variables in the equation.

I myself own 6 Lamy Safari fountain pens and because the Safari nibs are machine made, have experienced variances between same sized nibs. If you are using a paper other than Rhodia/Clairefontaine, you may experience thicker nib widths due to the ink soaking into the paper. The inks you choose can also play a factor in how they write – some are more free-flowing than another and can make a stingy feed bleed ink while others can make a nib feel scratchy. Note that Goulet does include the following disclaimer: “Your results may vary with various combinations of ink, paper, and writing position. These writing samples are representative, and standardized upon Noodler’s Black ink on 80g white Rhodia dotPad paper, all written and edited by Brian Goulet.”

But having said all that, Nib Nook is an amazing tool to get you started and I would absolutely recommend using it.

For one of the last treats on my Greenport vacation, I went to Aldo’s for a double expresso and one of his great pecan scones.

Heading outside towards the back patio, I spied a large Rhodia pad with “NOFO” sketched on the cover.

Of course, I went over to say “hi” and asked, “How do you like your Rhodia pad?”

The man looked up and said he liked them, loved the feel of the paper, and wrote all his music in them.  He bought them in bulk at Dunkerley’s in Southampton.

He looked familiar, and then I realized I was talking to Josh Horton, the former Supervisor of Southold Town. While he was in office he helped to save more than 1,000 acres of open space and farmland, which makes him a hero in my book. He is also a staunch advocate for the preservation of the area’s maritime heritage.

Josh Horton also plays in a band, Corky Laing & The Memory Thieves, and for the last two years has organized the NOFO Rock and Folk Fest, held at the Peconic Bay Winery in Peconic, NY.  This year it will be held July 30-31. The lineup includes Foghat, Elvin Bishop, Corky Laing & The Memory Thieves, John Sebastian, Commander Cody, and several more national and local talents.

We chatted for a bit, including how much we both missed having a Dunkerley’s store in Greenport. A Staples and Office Depot were built in nearby Riverhead, and their business dried up. Happily for us, Dunkerley’s continues to boom along in their Southampton location.

Josh said he would send me a photo of his NOFO Rhodia pad, but I forgot to give him my card. Anyway, if any of you will be out on the North Fork at the time of the weekend festival, please be sure to go hear Josh and his band, and say hi to a fellow Rhodia aficionado.

NOFO Rock and Folk Festival 2011

Corky Laing & The Memory Thieves

Aldo’s -

Dunkerley’s

More and more people write to Exaclair asking where they can get a custom leather cover for their journal or notebook. Our diaries and sketchbooks are precious possessions, and nothing lends a sense of ruggedness and individuality more than a leather cover. After all, it was made especially for you.

Gfeller Casemakers makes covers for Moleskines, and recently they started to make them for both large and pocket Rhodia Webbies. They also offer their Idaho Professional Field Folio specifically sized for the A4 top stapled pad.  All their products can be seen here.

It is important to me to know the history of a company or product I plan to make my own.  It will tell me about their values and character, and by extension, what’s important to other people who own and use the products.  It’s that perceived kinship–past and present–that helps me to decide whether or not I want to belong to that group.

At my request, Steve Derricott, president and co-owner of Gfeller Casemakers, wrote this history of the company.  I am delighted and honored to share it with you on Rhodia Drive:

Roy Gfeller and his wife Mertie lived near Aurora, Colorado in 1946. Roy was scraping by on a small acreage raising a few cows and doing part time saddle building and repair. He was an outgoing individual and made friends easily.  Little is known about the ranching operation other than his desire to one day have his own place and raise purebred Short Horn Herford beef cattle.  Much more information is available concerning his leather work.  His journal contains details of saddle construction and most importantly shows an early disposition for purchasing only the best materials.  High quality materials and attention to detail are to be vitally important in developing his future business as a Casemaker and his reputation for using only the best parts of the hide in his products will help to spread his work to every corner of the globe.

A geology professor nearby became acquainted with Gfeller and upon learning of his leather working ability had a special request.  With a rough sketch in hand, he presented an idea for a belt pouch to be used by his geology students.  This pouch would be large enough to carry a standard field book (approx 4 1/2″ x 7 5/8″), have pencil loops and scale pockets on the front panel and a flap long enough to protect contents on the inside and front pocket.  This prototype would evolve into the still produced FCX field case and became a near instant success.  A wide variety of high quality Geoscience related tool carriers and protectors would soon follow.  A ready market was found in nearby Golden at the Colorado School of Mines.

The US Geological Survey with headquarters in Denver was charged with inventory and development of uranium and other strategic minerals deposits a rapidly growing force of geologists and field scientists required equipment for studies. Roy aided by his wife and partner Mertie were suddenly swamped with orders for leather goods. Quality trumped quantity at every turn and established Roy Gfeller Casemakers as the source of equipment that could be trusted to provide long service in rugged use. Hammer Carriers, Field Belts, Compass and Field Cases with the Gfeller cartouche would be recognized at mines and exploration projects worldwide in a few years time.  Gfeller produced specifications for field equipment would be adopted by the USGS for all leather items stocked in supply depot.  Astronauts in training for the Apollo missions to the moon would train for that longest distance exploration and rock sampling project with Gfeller gear.

From that chance encounter in Aurora a thriving small business grew. With little outside assistance Roy and Mertie hand build leather goods for a quickly growing Geoscience profession. Roy maintained the ranching dream for several years through moves to Franktown, Colorado and Big Timber, Arlee and Polson, Montana. Finally settling in the Spokane, Washington suburb of Trentwood in the mid 1970s, he would focus on the Casemakers business from then on. Though his health declined in later years Roy Gfeller was at his bench building field equipment in the tradition of the western saddler until his passing in 1983.

The mid 1980s brought a special challenge to Gfeller Casemakers. Though continuing to operate with past employees the demand for field equipment had taken a nose dive. Reduced demand was due primarily to the sudden exit of major oil producing companies in the US and aboard from mineral exploration. The attraction of profit potential  had drawn big-oil into mineral exploration and added hundreds of geologists to field projects.  This exit spawned an unprecedented downward spiral in geo-employment and the need for Geoscience field equipment.

Steve Derricott had experienced success as an exploration geologist and was looking for a career change in 1985. He felt there was potential in the Gfeller Casemakers business that had not been developed. His idea was simple and he had the history of cyclic metal prices and exploration demand on his side.  He knew the reason for hard times at Gfeller Casemakers was due to a down cycle and that historically a following upswing was predicted.  If he could acquire the business and learn the operations so that demand could be met when the next upswing occured the business would grow again. The key to long life in the company was to diversify before the sure to follow down swing arrived.  With help and constant support from his wife, Lori, the Derricott team rebuilt Gfeller Casemakers. They were fortunate to attract custom manufacturing work that solidified the business and spread the demand away from seasonal Geoscience to year-round contracts. Customers as diverse as electronics and custom knife makers to the Military Academy at West Point, New York helped to grow a diversified Gfeller Casemakers.  Changing markets have challenged the company and new products have been added to the lineup.

A custom order request for a calfskin notebook cover would prove very fortuitous. Not unlike the request to build a student geologist’s field pouch, over sixty years earlier, this notebook cover and its acclaim on the internet launched a demand for new items to new customers.  Suddenly Gfeller Casemakers is the focus of blogs and tweets by customers that had recently discovered the profoundly functional notebook covers and personal leather products.

We are a stronger organization today because we have never departed from Roy’s insistence on premium raw materials, no nonsense designs and most importantly we enjoy our work.

I have been blessed with good friends, devoted family and a profession that sustains and fulfills me.  I hope to keep it for a long time to come.”

- Steve Derricott  3/18/2011

The blog, The Gadgeteer, has a good review of a Gfeller notebook cover.  Read it here.

Gfeller Casemakers previously appeared on Rhodia Drive here.

Since I love cheese, this delightful email caught my eye…..

“There once was a family obsessed with cheese, when offered fromage they always said please! Their quest for cheese took them quite far, discovering how passionate they truly are! So they plotted and planned to bring it all home, NO longer for cheese will you have to roam! We have cases to fill and floors to mop…bringing the village a little cheese shop!”

“My sister and I are opening a cheese shop in our home town! Alongside cheese, we want to showcase all of the products we’ve grown to love/need!”

“I love my Rhodia notebooks. From symposium notes + travel journals (aka universal pictionary) to new purveyors + tasting details for our shop, I can’t imagine jotting them in anything but my trusty orange Rhodia!”

Thank you, Lydia!  Rhodia + cheese fans, Claremont, California has a place just for you!  Please visit Claremont Cheese when their site is launched – claremontcheese.com – and in the meantime follow them on twitter – http://twitter.com/cheesecave.

Are pens and notebooks making a slight comeback? I have noticed that even people who manage most of their calendar and communications by a blackberry, iPhone, or some other kind of electronic devise still like to to carry around a notebook for meetings or to record their ideas, private thoughts and observations. They also carry a pen. Or two.

Along with the surge in notebook interest have come some new pen makers.  Three new pen companies I am following are Edison Pen Co. in Ohio; The Goulet Pen Company in Virginia; and the Norsk Workshop in Florida. You can also follow them on Facebook:  Brian at The Goulet Pen Company, Patrick at Norsk Workshop and Brian at Edison Pen Co.

I hope to get to meet each of them at a pen show in 2010, where I will leave poorer but much happier!

Do you have a new or favorite pen maker to recommend?  Are you considering entering the field?

Kenji OHTA runs a blog called GTD+R, based on GTD (Getting Things Done), the popular action management method as applied to Rhodia notepads.

Phil Gyford has a checklist on making the big switch from working for someone to working for yourself.

David Seah’s The Printable CEO does not promise to clear out your task list, but it makes you feel good that you did make progress. Setting goals around a bubble chart makes it fun too.