Sihl paper, almost lidl price!

[Francisco]

I have been around reading and learning for a while. I got inktek pigmented ink for my epson WF3620, and I am waiting for the refillable cartridges. I just saw what looks like a very good price on sihl paper, and wanted the share: Sihl inkjet bright photo paper fast dry 280g, 50 sheets A4 for 6,25 euro (+VAT). That's almost lidl or aldi price, and where I live those stores do not sell paper often. I emailed them to see if they send to countries other than germany, and if they accept payment through something different than bank transfer. Looks interesting!.

http://shop.sihl-direct.de/shopdisplayproducts.aspx?id=1075&cat=0769

 

[PeterBJ]

Sadly it seems that they only sell the complete product range to business customers in Germany and Austria, private customers from Germany are allowed to buy a part of the product range. I hope you can persuade them to accept customers from other countries than Germany and accept credit cards or Pay Pal.

From the Shop-Informationen:

Wer kann bestellen?
Unser Komplett-Angebot richtet sich an gewerbliche Kunden in Deutschland und Österreich.
Darüber hinaus richtet sich ein Teilbereich (SOHO Office Medien und SIHL MASTERCLASS) an Privatkunden in Deutschland.

Which translates to:

Who can order?
Our complete offer is aimed at business customers in Germany and Austria.
In addition, a part (SOHO Office media and SIHL MASTERCLASS) is offered to private customers in Germany .

 

[The Hat]

Hi @Francisco and welcome, yes Sihl has some great inkjet paper stocks but if you want to get it at your local Lidl store much cheaper and don’t know when they stock it.
Then subscribe to their Newsletter and you’ll be kept informed about every up and coming great offer they may have..

click to enlarge...

 

[Francisco]

Sadly it seems that they only sell the complete product range to business customers in Germany and Austria, private customers from Germany are allowed to buy a part of the product range. I hope you can persuade them to accept customers from other countries than Germany and accept credit cards or Pay Pal.

From the Shop-Informationen:


Which translates to:

Yes, you are right. They do not respond to emails. However, they seem to have a shop in ebay.de: same name (sihldirect) and similar prices:

http://www.ebay.de/sch/sihldirect/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

Even though they do not ship out of germany, if you ask them they respond and tell you that they do and the shipping is 8 euro. They take paypal. I am trying to order A4 glossy 280g paper. We'll see.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that Sihl Ebay shop does not seem to have much turnover , with 205 transactions at this time, but o.k., it may be a decent source if they deliver outside Germany.

I consider the Sihl Quick dry 280gr paper a pretty good paper, a bargain when available at Aldi-Nord in Germany, or in those countries which are administered by Aldi-Nord as well. Aldi-Sued has different papers in their offerings judged not as good as the Sihl papers. This Sihl paper gives a very wide gamut with dye inks, has a smooth and even glossy surface - o.k. not as good as expensive premium papers but very good and good enough for most purposes. The Sihl paper has an ink limit which you may reach with some printers and driver settings like RPM on Epson, and you may get ink puddles in that case. But don't worry - more ink does not necesssarily means that you get more color saturation in all cases - there is a limit with every ink, and you even may get less color saturation with more ink - there is a point of color saturation reversal. Aldi Nord has a second supplier for photo papers, same price 50 sheets A4 300gr at 4,99€, the packaging looks quite similar, it is labelled as coming from Netbit GmbH, but that's most likely just a company doing custom packaging, and the paper itself comes from Schoeller, another big German specialty paper mill mainly doing business in the large format business range. This Aldi/Netbit/Schoeller paper is a tick better for me, it has a neutral white whereas the Sihl paper is slightly yellow, both use optical brighteners, Netbit probably some more. The Netbit paper takes more ink , there is no practical problem with particular driver settings, the gamut of both the Netbit and Shil papers are equivalent, that would not be a reason to choose one over the other. Both papers work very well with dye inks, when it comes to pigment inks both papers show a very slight haze over the gloss, it is still acceptable but other papers look better with pigment inks - e.g. a HP Premium Plus, or pretty outstanding the Sihl metallic Pearl offered as well in their Ebay shop. That paper is really something and gives an outstanding look.
The Sihl paper was offered by Lidl as well, in their stores and online, but not at this time, I have not seen that offer since a while.
And beyond that - I have written about my experience with pigment inks and papers at other threads already - the look, the effects like bronzing, gloss differentials etc very much depend on the combination of ink and paper, one brand of ink may look good on one kind of paper but just terrible on another paper, but overall I was not happy with Inktec pigment inks at all - the black creates a pretty strong silver metallic gloss and does not really look black under most viewing conditions, other inks do better in that respect. And what am I using at this time - dye inks - Fuji DL - on Sihl, Netbit, HP, Labelheaven and other, and pigment inks on an old Pro 7600 on some Emblem roll paper - 250gr glossy - which looks best for me with my inks - even gloss - a good black . But if you would ask me which ink I use - I wouldn't really like to tell you - a mix of different brands from lots of previous tests - mixed together - there may be about 4 or 5 sorts of inks in the Magenta or Cyan etc bottles. from Lyson, Octopus office , China and wherever, and the black is the new Lyson photo pigment black for the Epson P600 which gives a better black level than previous inks. And why did I mix them all - I just don't want to run a new profile everytime I change and refill a particular color.

 

[Francisco]

Thanks for your input. To my part of Europe the lidl and aldi paper are rare birds, but if I find them I'll store a good stock for a few years. I just ordered the 280g glossy sihl paper. The ebay.de store works (at least within europe). As for the inktek ink, I just got 4 liters from octopus, and it will have to work for the next few years too . I hope it is not too bad.

 

[The Hat]

@Francisco, Thank you for your feed back it’s really appreciated by all of us, there are no strangers on Printerknowledge only friends...

 

[PeterBJ]

I don't know if this observation by Lucas28 still holds true, but Lidl might offer the photo paper at week 4 +/- 4 weeks, meaning January and February, so it might be a good idea to watch the Lidl ads. IIRC both Aldi and Lidl have offered photo paper for sale twice a year.

 

[Francisco]

I'll keep an eye on the newsletters!!. I suscribed to both, following the hat's suggestion. Glad to be onboard with this friendly group of refillers!!.

 

[sony53]

I'll keep an eye on the newsletters!!. I suscribed to both, following the hat's suggestion. Glad to be onboard with this friendly group of refillers!!.

http://www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=30422