Congratulations to Beth! The winner of the $25 electronic Gift Certificate from Jet Pens. Looks like you’ll be able to try out all those pocket notebooks yourself!
Thanks to everyone else who reads the blog and entered the giveaway.
Video: Staplers and Glass Pen
My husband stumbled across this video of staplers found in Japan by this colorful Brit from The Grand Illusions web site, a site that sells toys, illusions and other novelty items.
I dug through his videos in search of other tidbits that might be interesting to readers and also found his glass pen demo. He comments that washing the tip with a little soapy water helps to make the ink adhere much better. Good tip!
Pitch Black is the new black
Field Notes heard us. They announced last week that they are now offering an open-stock (non-limited) black edition of their classic Field Notes pocket notebook. Its called Pitch Black and features French Paper Company 100lb “Blacktop” covers with grey text on the cover. On the inside is the same white 50lb Finch Opaque paper but with a light-grey dot grid. They added a little zing with black staples. A 3-pack is the same price as the Kraft and Red-Blooded editions, $9.95.
I’m pretty sure this was made-to-order for Brad over at Pen Addict. Wouldn’t you agree?
Winner: The Groove by Dudek Modern Goods
Thanks to all the great responses from all the entrants in The Groove by Dudek Modern Goods giveaway. So, here is the winner:
Congrats Mark! I’ll be forwarding your email to Mr. Dudek and he will arrange shipping with you!
Review: Mon Carnet des Poche (Pocket Notebook)
I was enticed into ordering the Mon Carnet des Poche notebook thanks to my pal Carolee of Good Mail Day‘s sly tweet. I found that Kate’s Paperie in NY carried the notebook and I placed my order the same day. Knowing nothing of the book other than a TwitPic, it was a treat when it arrived.
It’s a B5 (approx 7″x10″) notebook that has simple cardstock covers with book cloth along the spine. The covers are not thick so the book is a little floppy, especially since it boast over 250 pages. Inside, the paper is three different styles: 112 pages of lined, 64 pages in brown kraft grid and the112 pages of blank sheets with perforations along the spine and in the middle of the sheet to create B6 (approx 5″x7″) note sheets.
The name of the book is stamped on the bookcloth spine in gold foil.
There is a little discrepancy in the trimming along the edges. You can also see the distribution of paper. There isn’t nearly as much of the kraft paper as the lined and the blank sheets.
The grid lines are printed in black and are very tiny.
The lines are spaced like wide-ruled (approx 7mm) and printed in a light grey.
The back section of the book is micro-perfed. In order to tear out a sheet, fold on the perf to crease is a couple times and then it should easily tear out.
In writing tests, the lined and blank paper is identical. Its a light ivory color and has a pleasing weight and tooth to it. The paper performed admirably. I had a little show-through but all the fountain pens I tried did not bleed or feather, nor did the paper resist the inks. Pencil and fine gel pens also wrote lovely on the stock. Because of the slight paper color and the grey lines, some tools were a touch to light for good, clean readability but overall I’m quite pleased with the lined/blank papers.
The kraft paper posed a bit of a challenge. Its a dark kraft color with black grid marks… whatever could I do with this? I decided that it was best suited to more artistic pursuits like opaque gel pens, oil pastels, watercolor, colored pencil and watercolor crayons. These pages are a little heavier weight so they would also be excellent places to glue, tape or staple ephemera or other collage projects. The watercolor warped the paper a little bit but not too severely.
I like that, for travel, I could carry just this one notebook and be able to journal my trip (lined paper), collage ticket stubs and other ephemera (kraft paper) and have scratch paper to jot notes or write letters (perforated, blank stock).
The large B5 size is available from Kate’s Paperie for $17. A smaller edition (5.2″5×7.5″) is also available for $10.
Happy Fountain Pen Day!
Thanks to former Hallmarker and lettering artist Chris Purcell for this lovely greeting for Fountain Pen Day. UK-based Pen Heaven has a lovely list of fountain pen facts to share today.
Show your fountain pen pride today! Or maybe use today as an excuse to buy that new pen you’ve been eyeballing.
Pocket Notebook Showdown
I discovered I had three very pocket-sized notebooks to review. So I decided to do one BIG pocket-sized notebook review. I’ve got the new Field Notes Drink Local, the Princeton Architectural Press Pocket Dept. Shirt Pocket notebook and a Doane Garage Series Utility notebook. As you can see, all three books are the same size but the Pocket Dept. notebook is perfect-bound while the Doane and Field Notes are staple-bound.
The latest Field Notes feature “soft touch” covers and 50lb text bright white paper printed with yellow gold “Hefeweizen” grid.
Doane notebooks feature their signature paper: wide lines and grid printed in blue on 60lb text weight, bright white paper. Each notebook has 48 pages sandwiched between kraft card stock covers.
The Pocket Dept. notebook has bright green card stock covers and features 64 pages of ivory paper with green lines.
Both the Field Notes and Doane notebooks have rounded corners but the Pocket Dept. has standard square corners.
In writing tests, the Pocket Dept. notebook preformed well with felt tipped, gel and hybrid pens and pencils. The cream ivory color made some of the lighter ink colors a little harder to use but not any worse than any other ivory-colored stocks (like Moleskine or Rhodia).
This close-up shows that the Pocket Dept. was not at all well-suited to fountain pens though. There seems to be a coating on the paper that resists fountain pen ink. The hybrid and gel inks didn’t have any issues though.
When viewed from the reverse of the paper, there is no bleed-through at all with the Pocket Dept. notebook.
I’m always tickled at how well Doane paper works. The blue lines are light enough to work just about any color ink as well as pencil and even the finest of lines.
There’s a tiny bit of bleed through from the wider nibbed fountain pens but there was not even any show through with most of the gel, hybrid and felt-tip pens.
I’m not normally a grid paper fan but the light yellow lines on the Field Notes made it easy for me to appreciate the latest Drink Local edition. It accepted all the same tools as the other two notebooks and was pleasant to use.
From the back side though, you can see that there is the most bleed through with the Field Notes. There’s some show-through with the hybrid, felt-tip and gel pens but not so badly that the reverse of the paper cannot be used.
Overall, the Field Notes are a paper nerd status symbol and the latest edition has a great feel in the hand and easy-to-use yellow grid lines. Field Notes are not great with fountain pens but for daily use with general-use pens and pencils they will serve you well.
The Pocket Dept. notebooks give a lot more sheets per notebook and you know I love the green covers. The paper is heavy enough to be able to use both sides of the paper with no issues but it is not at all fountain pen friendly.
The standout performer is the Doane Utility notebook. It works decently with fountain pens and all sorts of other writing tools. With both horizontal and grid markings, it satisfies almost all tastes.
Doane Garage Series Utility Notebooks are sold in sets of three for $9. The Princeton Architectural Shirt Pocket Notebooks are sold in packs of 3 for $12.50. Field Notes Drink Local are available in sets of 3 for $9.95 and you can choose between either Lager or Ale colors.
THE GIVEAWAY: Want to do your own notebook comparison? Tell me which notebooks you would like compare in the comments and you could win a $25 gift certificate at JetPens.
FINE PRINT: All entries must be submitted by 10pm CST on Monday, November 4, 2013. All entries must be submitted at wellappointeddesk.com, not Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook, okay? Winner will be announced on Tuesday. Winner will be selected by random number generator from entries that played by the rules (see above). Please include your email address in the comment form so that I can contact you if you win. I will not save email addresses or sell them to anyone — pinky swear. If winner does not respond within 30 days, I will draw a new giveaway winner. Gift Certificate will be sent digitally.
DISCLAIMER: These items were sent to me free of charge by Jet Pens and Clicky Post for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.