Source for vintage/vintage-esque journals

[Dr Doran]

Thanks, Wolf.

And thanks for clearing that up, Kabuto. Always a suspicion of mine.

Here is an idea.

Get one of those art paper notebooks I mentioned in my most recent post. Then get a piece of scrap leather. Have a shoe repair guy or luggage repair guy sew it a little and now you have a cool leather cover for one of said art paper notebooks, and because of the leather cover it now has a pocket into which you may stuff your LaVey Smith And The Red Hot Skillet Lickers tickets or whatnot. So you'll have all the advantages of the Moleskine minus the hi price, and you will be able to reuse the leather cover ad infinitum since it is leather.

There is an inexpensive Chinese luggage repair guy in Berkeley who will do that for next to nothing, and he probably has leather scraps lying around in his shop. If you cannot find the leather, try buying an old purse etc. at Goodwill for $3 and harvest the leather from that.

Or you can use bookbinding tape or glue to stick the leather onto the book in a more permanent fashion.

Then what you will have will be completely unique and thereby more interesting and stylish than a Moleskine.

 

[John in Covina]

For the design the Moleskine is pretty good BUT the paper is too lightweight, too thin. If I use my fountain pen I get "READ-THRU" and therefor cannot write on the back of a page. That cuts the book in half for usable writing area.

At Borders i saw some Rhodia mini journals, and the pads i have used from them were superb for fountain pen writing.

 

[John in Covina]

Here is a few places to root around in:

http://www.kschweizer.com/

http://www.vickerey.com/paper-earth-friendly.html

http://www.pendemonium.com/stationery_masters.htm

I like the paper from Clairefontaine and Rhodia. Also if you go to Borders Book Store and see they have their own brand of Journals which is usually a fabric red, blue or black cover with a label with big J on the front, those have great paper for fountain pens. If you made a leather book cover for one of those it would probably be pretty good.

Clairefountaine composition notebooks are pretty nice, too!

 

[Irish4]

Moleskine vs. Franklin/Covey

I did not know anything of Moleskine until I saw this post.I use my Franklin/Covey 24,7 in the zippered black leather case. Is the Moleskine a comparable item.The moleskine looks to be something I might think of switching to,if anybody could give me reasons that I might choose the Moleskine over my current day planner,I loved to hear from you.Thanks