Contents

Summary of TRP History

52 gsm

• 1981-2019: Tomoegawa Machine #7 (various colours, later white and cream only)
• 2020-2021: Tomoegawa Machine #9 (white only)
• 2021 onwards: Sanzen Paper produces 52gsm

68 gsm

• 1981-2019: Tomoegawa Machine #7
• 2020-2021: Tomoegawa Machine #9 (later “made to order” only)
• Unspecified gap in production?
• 2024?: Sanzen Paper begins early production of 68gsm

Tomoe River Paper is famous among fountain pen users for handling fountain pen ink well, while showing off ink properties to good effect. However, it’s had a tumultous history since 2019. Here’s a summary.

Tomoegawa TRP

Tomoe River Paper was introduced in 1981 by Tomoegawa Paper Company in Japan, designed for commercial applications (catalogues, magazines, bibles, etc.) and it came in 52 gsm and 68 gsm varieties in both white and cream; 52gsm was by far the more popular paper for fountain pens, and showed off ink more effectively.

(Tomoegawa also made other TRP in weights ranging from 25-84gsm for various printing applications but those products have never really been relevant for fountain pen users.)

Machine #7 Paper

The paper described above was made on Tomoegawa’s Shizuoka Plant #7 machine, and is therefore known as “Machine #7 paper”.

• 52gsm: Machine #7 52gsm paper is “the good stuff”, the original and best TRP that people mean when they say original TRP.
• 68gsm: Machine #7 was also used to produce 68gsm paper.

In April 2019 Tomoegawa announced that Machine #7 would be shut down at the end of the year and production of TRP would move to Machine #9 in the same plant.

Known Issues

I do not know of any known quality issues with Machine #7 paper in either weight.

Machine #9 Paper

From 2020, Machine #9 was used to make Tomoe River paper.

• 52gsm: Machine #9 52gsm paper was marketed as “New” paper; it still has Tomoegawa branding and SKUs (for more info see Identifying Tomoe River Products). It was made in white only.
• 68gsm: Machine #9 was used to produce 68gsm paper when the move first happened, but it was later moved to ‘made to order’ status

In May 2021, Tomoegawa announced that they would be shutting down Machine #9 and no longer producing Tomoe River paper; they instead said they would be outsourcing it.

Production of Machine #9 paper stopped sometime in the second half of 2021.

In October 2021, Tomoegawa announced they had sold the rights for Tomoe River Paper to Sanzen Paper (a subsidiary of Chuetsu Pulp).