Because I often buy index cards in tranches of 5,000 to 10,000 at a time, I’ve noticed that Oxford recently dropped their brick of 500 4×6″ index cards to $6.47, a new low for the past year when they’ve generally been hovering in the $8.50-9.50 range. As a competitive move, Amazon has dropped their competing brick to $5.82, also a new annual low. If your card index habit is price sensitive, now is the time to buy.
thanks for the info – how thick are the oxford index cards? i noticed other index cards are very thin now.
Thicker usually equates to better quality, but also becomes more expensive. Here are some specs I’ve accumulated on some of the more common brands and their standard cards in 4×6″ format:
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Appreciate the heads up!
Do you know how fountain pen friendly the Oxford cards are? The Amazon basics aren’t, in my experience
They both have a small amount of feathering/spread especially with wider nibs/juicy pens, but a non-fountain pen person likely wouldn’t know or realize. Amazon Basics show the faintest amount of ghosting with wider nibs/juicy pens, but if you’re actively using both sides, you probably wouldn’t notice either. Oxfords are slightly denser and don’t ghost at all. The Oxfords are slightly better in my opinion, but if you don’t like the Amazon Basics with your fountain pen, the Oxfords aren’t going to knock you over.
General they both have a small amount of toothiness, but they’re index cards and not Tomoe River paper. The smoothest of the group are Exacompta (by far) and then perhaps the Stockroom Plus.
You’ll notice for the increased thickness and smoothness the Exacompta are coming a lot closer in price per square foot of writing space to some of the higher end notebooks. https://boffosocko.com/2025/12/26/a-comparison-of-a5-sized-notebooks-with-4-x-6-inch-index-cards-on-a-cost-per-square-foot-basis/
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