From The Wall Street Journal
Correspondence Course
By Charles Passy, Special
Correspondent
Who sends handwritten notes in an age of instant messaging?
Apparently, those with the right kind of note paper.
Think of correspondence cards—one-panel (not foldover) cards—as the
pen-and-paper equivalent of e-mail: short, sweet and to the point.
They're getting so popular that one major stationery firm, New
York-based Chelsea Paper Co., estimates that 85% of its
personalized-stationery business is in correspondence cards—and adds
that sales of the product category are growing at a healthy 30%
annual pace.
To find out what the fuss is about, we went to five stationery
companies and let them help us select a classic design, going over
ideas by phone with sales reps before placing the actual orders
online. We pretended we were shopping for a woman active in both
business and charity, making her an inveterate letter-writer. After
our personalized cards arrived, we showed them to three prominent
women in and around Palm Beach, Fla., a social-minded town where
letter-writing has always been in fashion.
Our panel was most divided when it came to our cheapest
purchase—from American Stationery. Their Floral Print Fantasy cards
($82 for 100) were too, well, floral by some standards, with a
dark-teal border and an envelope lined with a springtime-themed
print. One of our panelists, etiquette expert Jacqueline Whitmore,
director of the Protocol School of Palm Beach, also noted the basic
offset printing job (wherein the type is flush with the paper, not
raised as with other, fancier methods). "It kind of screams
inexpensive," she said. But another panelist, Ballet Florida
Artistic Director Marie Hale, liked the card, noting the envelope
liner gave the stationery some personality.
Raised Impressions
Our panel was universally dismissive of our most-expensive choice—an
engraved William Arthur card, ordered through
FineStationery.com
($427 for 100 cards). The problem had nothing to do with the quality
of the thick paper ("good card stock," said Ms. Whitmore) or the
engraving—which, true to the company's promise, gave the text a
"slightly raised impression." Rather, the problem was the size of
the card itself—at 7½ inches by 5½ inches—this was the largest we
ordered. "Too big!" protested Julie Littky-Rubin, an attorney who
rounded out our panel. "It's not graceful," added Ms. Hale. The
company noted that customers can see a proof before an order is
completed and make changes as they see fit; they also feature other
sizes of cards.
Two other companies offered a softer take on correspondence cards.
Both the Claudia Laub Studio and Alden Grace Fine Stationery favored
off-white cards with an almost ragged (or "deckled") edge—"the
torn-parchment look," as Ms. Littky-Rubin called it. The differences
between the two were in the printing: The Laub studio ($350 for 100
cards) opted for the labor-intensive, letterpress method—where the
type is set deeply into the card stock—and used a slightly modern
font; Alden Grace ($141 for 100 cards) went with the more affordable
thermography method (kind of a poor man's engraving that uses heat
instead of metal plates to create raised letters) in a suitably
feminine font. Our panelists thought the Laub products were lovely
("Everything is understated," said Ms. Whitmore), but the cards from
Alden Grace are less than half the price while almost equal in
quality, so they are our Best Value.
But for Best Overall, there was a clear and classic choice: Crane's,
which has been making stationery since 1801. When our panelists saw
its no-frills, thermographed ecru-colored correspondence card ($332
for 100), they were impressed on almost all levels: the paper had
heft ("there's something to it," said Ms. Littky-Rubin), the size
was just right and the font was "feminine but not overly feminine,"
said Ms. Whitmore, who recognized the manufacturer from the moment
we brought out the card. "This will never go out of style," she
added.
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