Mark of the Moleskine
Okay, I can see the appeal. I’m not sure that I’m ready to join the Moleskine faithful, but these notebooks are pretty cool. I like the covers, the closure bands are a feature I appreciate, the end papers are classy and the pocket in the back is darn handy.
Even the paper-covered cahiers are pretty cool. No band, and certainly not as durable, but nice. The paper is stitched into the cover in a single signature, and the perforated pages in the back is a very nice touch. I don’t like notebooks with perforated pages; after you remove enough pages, it gets a gap-toothed appearance. I generally just don’t like tearing pages out of notebooks. But then I’ve been in situations where someone asks for a piece of paper, and there I am with five notebooks full of paper and none of it’s perfed or otherwise ready for clean and easy removal. Twenty perfed pages in the back of the cahier is a very nice compromise. Easy removal, but the pages all come out from the same place and the whole thing doesn’t have to be perfed.
I think the design is spot-on. The paper is a pleasing off-white color, not quite as yellow as a legal pad, with grey rules. I prefer a brighter white for a sketchbook, but this is very nice for a journal or a composition book. In comparison to every other notebook I’ve put my hands on recently, the Moleskines are ruled very close. It’s wonderful for the truly fine point of my Parker ‘51â or for a modern extra-fine; I don’t think anyone could write with a medium or broad nib in a ruled Moleskine.
So as an object of art, the Moleskine notebook takes the prize. Its æsthetic appeal doesn’t seem to have a rival. The features are not overly clever; the whole line has been well thought out.
My gripe is that the paper, while smooth and subtly textured, is a bit thin and porous. I’ll grant that my Noodler’s ink is a tough test for any paper, but the Moleskine paper shows the writing on the opposite side of the page too much to allow the use of the reverse of each page when I write with my Rotring Initial (fine point) loaded with Noodler’s Hunter Green. The green bleeds visibly away from the line as though I were writing on newsprint. The Parker ’51, which I believe has Private Reserve Black in it, does not exhibit these problems on the Moleskine paper. Neither does the Pilot Knight, filled with Aurora Black. The Noodler’s Polar Black in my Rotring 700 also bleeds like the dickens on Moleskine paper.
Excessive bleeding is not an acceptable situation, but it seems I can avoid it by not using Noodler’s inks. So do I change ink for paper’s sake or paper for ink’s sake? Not a question I’m prepared to answer quite yet, but any of my dear readers who may be considering an ink or a notebook should be aware of their properties.
The last issue I have with the Moleskine notebooks is that they are «Printed and bound in China — Designed and assembled in Italy». I’m curious whether the paper is milled in China as well. In any case, although the US has «normal trade relations» (what used to be called «Most Favored Nation») with China, as someone who values freedom and human dignity I have trouble sending my money to China. These are premium notebooks; couldn’t they have gotten the paper made in a country without a record of worker abuse? There are lots of great features to the notebooks, but at these prices why would they have to ship the work off to China? It is a real misgiving I have about adopting Moleskine as my new notebook of choice. However, in order to test out the notebooks I’ve bought several of them, so it’ll be some time before I have to face this choice again.
At Arch Supplies today I noticed that one of the Moleskines they had on the shelf had an older label, one that didn’t have «printed and bound in China» on it. It may be worth the price of another one of these spendy Moleskines to find out if there has been any change in the quality of the paper since they started getting it from China.
yeah, I always wanted to
yeah, I always wanted to like the Moleskines, but couldn’t get into them. I prefer a Parker stainless steel classic pen and a stack of index cards with a red mini bulldog clip.
With my life the way it is now, I’m starting to want a small notebook for writing things down on the fly. Outlook is great for cataloging, indexing and searching, but things flow into my mind and out quickly and I want to capture thoughts as they happen.
“Excessive bleeding is not
“Excessive bleeding is not an acceptable situation…”
True.
I have been using moleskines
I have been using moleskines for years and here are some observations I have, and maybe some suggestions.
I use them as travel journals with my parker vector (a beautiful writer that’s not a big loss if your luggage is purloined in say, Caracas. Incidentlally one of my vectors spent 16 months with me in iraq where it managed to churn out a letter a day with locally obtained ink with not a single clogged feed and is still my daily travel writer. I don’t care what people say about the cheap plastic cap and barrel, the thing is a little scuffed up but no cracks or malfunctions eight years and twenty countries later) But back to Moleskines…
My first advice is give up the lined notebooks if possible. People give them to me as gifts, and they generally get regifted. Maybe there is something in the printing process that mucks up the finish of the paper, i don’t know, but they always feather and bleed through.
I use the sketch books that have paper that is almost like a card stock. You can double side your paper and use the wettist ink. I currently use Noodler’s nightshade for a nice antique feel.
I recently got an unlined moleskine journal with the thinner paper, and again no bleeding or feathering problems (I’ve only tested it with nightshade and Pelikan Royal blue). The paper is much thinner than the the sketchbook cardstock grade, so if you hold it up to the light the words show though, but you can certainly write on both sides of the paper.
I am thoroughly convinced that the paper used in the lined moleskine products is either a. of an inferior grade or b. treated in some way in the lining process that renders them unsuitable for use with a fountain pen.
If you like the beauty and simplicity of the moleskine books try the unlined versions. The drawback to the sketchbooks is that there are fewer pages because the sheets are thicker, but they are much more durable and opaque even against light. I like the smaller size because they fit nicely in a good sized pocket.
If you absolutely must have lines I also have a suggestion that’s a little odd but hey I’ll throw it out anyway. Yellow legal pads. I use them to put my moleskine notes into coherent order before typing them up. Again I don’t know what they do in terms of finishing the paper but ink sits beautifully on top of it without feathering or bleeding. You could get the mini pads and a leather pad case. I use staples brand, so no financial hardship. Maybe it’s not the look you’re going for, but it’s the only lined paper I’ve found that you can write on reliably with a fountain pen (that goes for my italic waterman as well as my medium parkers). The white legal pads are surfaced in a different way and I haven’t yet found ones that don’t bleed, but I don’t like the look of ink on bright white anyway so I haven’t made much of an effort.
About not wanting to send off money to China… I can certainly understand the political sentiment and there are countries whose products I won’t buy, but I live in the US so I would have to go without a lot of stuff not buying chinese…