Castelli, Diary, Giveaway, Journal, new products, Notebook Reviews, pens

Review and Giveaway: Castelli Notebooks

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Castelli is an Italian company offering customizable journals, notebooks and diaries. They not only sent me samples, they personalized them with the name of this site! The samples I received are of a variety of sizes and colors and formats, and from the catalogs they also sent, even these are just a fraction of their options.

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There’s a large 2014 planner with a removable cover and 2 pen loops, with pens included.

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The medium size notebooks show some nice options– I like the dyed edges on the black/orange one, and the red one has a nice leather-textured cover with an interlocking double pen loop that keeps the notebook closed. The black/red notebook has an unusual binding style which makes the spine much more flexible. The slim red pocket size notebook is about the size of a checkbook, and the cover is removable. The pencils Castelli includes with some notebooks are a pleasantly chunky 3-sided design that is comfortable to hold.

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My favorite was this little planner in my favorite size, 3.5 x 5.5″.

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The week to page format with lined notes pages facing is similar to one of Moleskine’s planners, and I’ve always liked the way it gives you space to log appointments or other daily items while allowing some space for longer notes or journal entries.

Construction is solid, though the back pocket is all paper with no fabric reinforcement. One standout feature is the extensive info at the front of the planner. In addition to the typical yearly planner pages, conversion charts and international dialing codes, you get some extra fun stuff like a wine vintage chart and common phrases from Latin.

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There is also a whole signature of unlined notes pages at the back, and a few alphabetized pages for addresses and phone numbers. Unfortunately, the paper in this planner is pretty thin. It is smooth and feels great to write on, but bleed-through and show-through were worse than average. (I did not test all the paper in the other notebooks, but a couple of them seemed to have a somewhat heavier paper in a bright white.)

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Now for your opportunity to win your own Notebook Stories notebook from Castelli!

I’ll randomly select 5 winners from entries received in these ways:

On Twitter, tweet something containing “@CastelliUK” and “@NotebookStories”, and follow @NotebookStories and @CastelliUK.

On Facebook, “like” the Notebook Stories page and the Castelli page, and post something containing the word “Castelli” on the Notebook Stories wall.

On your blog, post something containing the words “Castelli” and “Notebook Stories” and link back to this post.

The deadline for entry is Friday June 20, 2014 at 11:59PM, EST. Good luck everyone!
And please remember to check my posts on Facebook and Twitter for an announcement of the winner. Please allow a couple of weeks for me to check all the entries and determine the winners.
UPDATED 6/17 with the correct web addresses for Castelli UK, not Castelli North America. All entries will still be honored.

Boorum & Pease, Links, Nostalgia, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, Oxford, Places to Buy Notebooks

Notebook Addict of the Week: Jesse Jarnow

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This week’s addict is right in line with the rest of this week’s theme. He has quite a collection of those old reddish-brown notebooks and is desperate to find more! He mentions them being made by Oxford, which must be the brand they ended up with in more recent years after Boorum & Pease was merged into Oxford/ Esselte. The stock number seems to have stayed consistent, though.

 

a plea for oxford memo book 6096 1/2 | Jesse Jarnow

“Some people swear by Moleskine notebooks. Me, I’m all about the 6 1/8″ x 3 3/4″ 72-page Oxford Memo Book, stock number 6096 1/2. They look old school, age well after months in my back pocket, and never fall apart.

Unfortunately, the dude at the stationary store told me that they are being discontinued in that size. I, for one, am having a cow.”

 

I know we all sympathize!

Read more at a plea for oxford memo book 6096 1/2 | Jesse Jarnow.

Boorum & Pease, Links, Nostalgia, Other People's Notebooks, Places to Buy Notebooks, record-keeping, Scientific

Another Retro Style from Boorum & Pease

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Here’s another simple notebook style from Boorum and Pease, and this one still seems to be available, at least in this size and format: Boorum & Pease Handy Size 7 x 4 3/8 Inch 96-Page Bound Memo Book with Stiff Tan Cover (6559)

Below is from a post by Andy at Woodclinched (a blog about wooden pencils) looking at his father-in-law’s old notebooks:

“My father-in-law built a boat. We all thought it was an improvised affair; with PVC pipes lashed to two-by-fours and duct tape. But he’s apparently been planning it for quite a while. In fact, he has a whole notebook where he planned it out and documented his project…”

Read more at Boorum & Pease | Woodclinched. Andy’s father-in-law also had a nice engineer’s field book by a company I’d never heard of, Keuffel and Esser. Andy also provides a link to this history of the Boorum and Pease company.

Boorum & Pease, Moleskine, My Collection, Nostalgia, Places to Buy Notebooks, Uncategorized

Boorum & Pease/Esselte Black Notebooks

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Here’s another old-time favorite of mine:

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These are pocket sized notebooks made by Boorum & Pease and Esselte in the 1980s, with lined pages and a textured black hard cover. I look at these now and see them as a sort of proto-Moleskine. I was always looking for a nice “little black book,” in a pocket size, with an unadorned cover. For a while in the late 1980s, these were it for me. I just adored them. I still think their size and thickness is very appealing, though I hate all that huge cover overhang, and nowadays I never use lined notebooks since there are more options with plain and squared pages. (If these had been available with squared pages, I would have died and gone to heaven back then.)

It’s interesting that some were made with squared corners, and some round. Quality control was a bit of an issue– you can see that there’s a huge gap in the spine of one of the notebooks– it came that way when new, it’s not just that the pages are coming loose. Some of the paper in these is getting rather brown with age– not acid-free, I’m guessing!

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Shown below with a pocket Moleskine and my other ’80s Boorum & Pease notebooks for size comparison:
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I haven’t seen these black notebooks in stores in quite a long time, but I’m happy to report that they are still available online! Right here in the Notebook Stories Store: Pocket Size Bound Memo Book, Ruled, 3-1/4 X 5-1/4, White, 72 Sheets

Boorum & Pease, My Collection, Nostalgia, Oxford, Places to Buy Notebooks

Boorum and Pease Brown Taped-Spine Notebook

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A reader recently wrote to me with the following question:

“I have been looking for a particular kind of notebook for quite some time. I see them more in movies than anything, and examples include JFK and the most recent Captain America movie (see pic below). It’s very similar to the one you have posted for Samuel Beckett. It’s got a brown card stock soft cover, ruled pages, and I believe stapled or stitched binding with a darker color tape (?) placed along the bound edge for reinforcement. They look like the sort of thing that would only cost a dollar or two. I’ve looked everywhere and cannot find them. Do you happen to know where I might find such a thing?”
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I get so many questions about notebooks where I am completely stumped, but this time, I had some answers! I had a few of these notebooks in my own collection:

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I bought these in the 1980s, in various stationery/office supply stores. Mine were made by Boorum & Pease, stock # 6086 1/2. Other brands may also have been available back in the day, perhaps in other parts of the country– Boorum and Pease was a NY/NJ-based company for many years, so these may have been more common in the Northeast. It’s rather quaint to think of regional stationery brands in today’s globalized world, isn’t it! But at least in the area where I grew up, these notebooks used to be pretty common and inexpensive. I loved the look of the reddish-brown cover with the black tape on the spine. The square corners could get beat up, but other than that, they were really handy little notebooks, and it’s a shame they seem to have gone out of fashion.

In searching for a contemporary version online, these were the closest things I could find: Oxford Side Opening 48 SHT Memo Book 5″ x 3″ – # 6080 1/2 and Roaring Springs Sewn Memo Book Item # 76096. There are similar ones on Amazon under the brand names Wilson & Jones and Adams Manufacturing. Unfortunately, most of them aren’t the same pocket sized version as mine– I mainly found listings for larger sizes. I’ve collected all the ones I could find on Amazon (plus some other fun stuff) in the Notebook Stories store under “Retro Style Notebooks.” If anyone else can suggest places to buy these notebooks today, please let us know in the comments!

 

 

 

Boorum & Pease, Links, My Collection, Nostalgia, Other People's Notebooks, Places to Buy Notebooks

This Week’s Theme: Old Notebooks from Boorum & Pease

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I thought it would be fun to have a whole week of posts about an old brand of notebooks that used to be ubiquitous and now has become almost– but not quite— extinct: Boorum and Pease. They started out as an independent manufacturer of blank books based in Brooklyn, but since then, they’ve been absorbed in a couple of corporate mergers and the name has largely disappeared, except for a few products. Most of the Boorum & Pease notebooks that are available today seem to be larger format ledgers and record books for accounting:

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These are pretty cool for their own reasons, but they aren’t pocket size notebooks for the casual user like Boorum & Pease used to make. This week’s posts will take a look a closer look at a couple of their old-style notebooks, which many notebook enthusiasts are desperately trying to find nowadays!

Stay tuned for some retro notebook goodness, and in the meantime, here’s a few posts where I’ve mentioned this brand before:

 

Boorum and Pease Engineer’s Field Book, Late 1980s

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Notebook Addict of the Week: John Dickerson
John Dickerson's notebooks.
Notebook Trivia: Boorum & Pease Building

Art, creativity, Daler Rowney, Links, Notebook Addict of the Week, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Notebook Addict of the Week: Adebanji Alade

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This week, we have another sketchbook addict, who is originally from Nigeria and now lives in London. He talks about the importance of the “sketch inspiration” for all kinds of artists. Adebanji himself is a talented artist, and an enthusiastic teacher– his blog is full of art lessons with videos on a variety of topics. As for his materials, here’s a shot of  some of his sketchbooks:

It’s quite a pile! His favorites for mobile sketching are 4×6″ Daler Rowney sketchbooks.

Read more at WELCOME TO MY SKETCH INSPIRATION BLOG –.

books, Cavallini, Chronicle, Clairefontaine, Filofax, Kikkerland, Letts, Leuchtturm, Moleskine, Noteletts, Piccadilly, Pocket Dept, Rhodia, Whitelines

BookExpo 2014

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For my day job, I attend the Book Expo convention every year. A fringe benefit of the show is that I usually manage to spot some notebook vendors and get a look at their new products, but at this year’s show, which occurred last weekend, it was really sparse! Leuchtturm had a colorful corner booth, with their Whitelines collaboration prominently highlighted. Filofax/Letts/Lamy had a shared booth, and seemed to be pouncing on anyone who showed the least bit of interest, perhaps just to keep their samples from being stolen. Moleskine was totally absent, other than their name being permanently emblazoned on part of the Chronicle booth (their distributor). Exaclair wasn’t there, nor was Peter Pauper Press, Cavallini, or Piccadilly– all companies I’ve seen there in the past. Book Expo was where I first spotted Pocket Dept notebooks, but this year I didn’t spot a single new or interesting notebook. The only thing that attracted me was the booth of some Italian publisher where I saw that they had a pile of promotional notebooks that they seemed to be giving away. I couldn’t come up with any valid pretext for an actual business conversation with the guy, and was too embarrassed to just walk up and say “hey, can I have a free notebook?” I spotted one other promotional notebook giveaway, from Ingram, the largest book wholesaler. They were offering a notebook that looked like a composition book, but it was a different size, closer to 6×9″, and thinner, with a squared-off spine.

It’s a shame I didn’t manage to photograph these things, but sadly, you’re not missing much! I hope there will be better pickings next year… and in the meantime, maybe I’ll manage to attend the Stationery Show someday. I suppose most notebook companies feel like it’s not worth paying to hawk their wares to the thinning ranks of booksellers and prefer to attend a show with more potential buyers of non-book product. But at least Book Expo is still a fun place to talk about books! They are opening it up to more and more activities for the general public, now called “BookCon,” so if you’re a reader, and you will be in NYC at the end of May next year, you should check it out!

Notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, diaries: in search of the perfect page…