After having used my MindPapers for quite a while now, it was just about time to refill them with a couple of new index cards. Unfortunately, one mostly gets only the simple white ones (and not so great paper quality) here in Sweden – plus they are really, really, really expensive for some unknown reason.
This is one of the weird things of living in Sweden: very little choice and relatively high prices in the stationery market (note to self: knit yourself a business there). For instance, on staples.se you get a 100-pack of index cards – called “skrivkort” in Swedish – (but only the Esselte-ones and only in white?!), A6, 170 g/m2 and you get to pay about 6,50€ for that! On staples.de, however, you will find a massive selection of colors and rulings in index cards (”Karteikarten” in German) and the A6 ones (100-pack, white and ruled, too) will cost you about 1,90€. Do the maths and this is about 3-4 times the price!? And that being that the latter ones are even 205 g/m2 and made by Exacompta, which means Clairefontaine paper. Remember, these are the guys that also do the paper for the Rhodia notepads!
If anyone has an explanation for that, I’ll be more than happy (or maybe confused) to hear about it! Maybe it is because the Germans are notorious for being bureaucrats and overly organized, which is why they need so many and such a wide variety of them. I for one love it, in that instance. Not the bureaucracy, but the choice in index cards.
Anyway, fortunately I was in Germany lately – the home of a million cute little stationary shops with endless choice! And I took the chance and got me a good couple of packets straight away :-).