Personalized stationery in Europe, on a shoestring

February 8, 2020 7:31 AM

I am looking for some classy looking, but affordable, custom-printed stationery. I live in the EU and don't want to pay outrageous shipping charges from the US or UK, so I'd like to find a European website that offers this.

Specifically I am looking for a stationery shop that offers:

Budget price
Low minimums (I only need 20 pages or so)
The ability to buy extra blank pages for longer letters
A5 size
Matching envelopes available
Reasonable shipping costs
Preferably located within the EU
Page designs do not need to be fancy (I want something simple but classy looking)
Website does not need to be in English

I've already tried Prantl and they were wayyyy too expensive.

Help me if you can, Metafilter!

posted by all the light we cannot see to Shopping (6 answers total)

Any small printing company in your area who will regularly do their business over the phone and in person can make a stationary set for a much lower price with the same or near level of quality as Prantl if you are looking for paper and envelopes. You would need to go in and make contact with them. I met the people I use at a networking breakfast. They did me A4 letterhead and A4 envelopes on a run of 300 sheets and 100 envelopes for £150. So you would pay 35-40% less by using a local printer, but ymmv.
posted by parmanparman at 8:28 AM on February 8, 2020

Best answer: Have you considered buying some blank Crane’s stationery or similar, and a lovely custom stamp or two? Done properly (use a template to place stamps), it could feel quite high end, and your long term cost would be pretty low. Depending on the information you need to convey, a custom embosser has some nice potential as well.
posted by chuke at 8:47 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Could you be more precise than 'EU'? Many businesses cater to a specific country, not the whole continent.
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:00 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

I assume you are in Germany from your link to Prantl?
There are online printers like this one here
I think they deliver also to Germany.

Google online printing and the country you are in.

However, if you only need 20 sheets, no printing service i am familiar with will make you happy price wiswe. The less you need, in printing, the more expensive it will be, less than 100 will not cost you less but more.

If you are in a big city in Germany or Austria look for a stationery shop. They might just do 20, But it wont be cheap.
posted by 15L06 at 10:59 AM on February 8, 2020

Why not run very heavy paper through a high-end printer at a good copy shop, like ReproBerlin or Duruprint Druckerei?
posted by Ideefixe at 11:16 AM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for your ideas.

After considering everyone's answers, I've decided to buy an embosser and use it on nice plain paper. Since handheld embossers with custom designs are available relatively cheaply on places like Etsy, I agree with chuke that it would probably be the most cost-effective idea in the long run.

Now I know why letter writing is a dying art! Email doesn't cost one or more euros per page!
posted by all the light we cannot see at 1:14 AM on February 9, 2020