23 September 2026

Terms of a sale at the counter.

Paper Moth sells cotton paper, bottled ink, graphite pencils, and envelopes at 24 S Clinton Street, Iowa City, Iowa 52240. These terms cover that counter. They are not a printing contract, because we do not print.

Price and count

The price is the price on the ticket in the drawer, read before payment. This website does not list prices and is not an offer that binds us to a number you saw somewhere else. A quire is 25 sheets. A ream is 500. If your count and ours differ, we count once more at the counter. The second count stands.

Payment is cash or card, in person, in U.S. dollars. We do not take payment through the note form. A page on this site, an unanswered email, or a phone message is not an order. An order exists when we confirm the fiber, the weight, the size, and the count, and payment is made.

What the sale does not include

We do not cut custom sizes. We do not print, address, or stuff envelopes. We do not design or assemble wedding suites. We do not repair pens. Iron gall is acidic. It can stain skin, cloth, and a sheet, and it can damage a steel nib left inked for a long time. We say so when that bottle is sold. Testing is on a scrap or in a vial we give you. Putting your pen in our bottle is not part of the sale.

Returns

Within seven days, with the receipt: an unopened ink bottle we still sell, or paper still in its wrap, unwritten and uncut. We do not take back a sharpened pencil, a box of envelopes that has been opened, an opened ink bottle, a sample vial, or a sheet that has left the wrap. Deckled sheets handled at the counter stay in stock only if they are still clean. Once they leave the shop, they are sold.

The site

The pages describe the shop as we run it. Weather notes are records from the counter, not a promise that any sheet will behave the same way in your room. If a line on a page and a ticket in the drawer disagree, the ticket and the person at the desk govern the sale.

Liability and law

We are not liable for indirect loss, or for ink that stains after you leave with a bottle we warned you about. Nothing here limits liability that Iowa law does not allow us to limit. Iowa law governs a sale at this counter. Disputes belong in the courts of Johnson County, Iowa.

Questions go to desk@papermoth.shop or to the desk during open hours.