Filofax, My Collection, Places to Buy Notebooks

Vintage Pocket Filofax on eBay

1 Comment

Every once in a while, I get this weird impulse to search for vintage Filofaxes on eBay. I bought one about a year ago and haven’t gotten around to reviewing (or using) it yet. In fact, I haven’t used a Filofax actively in at least 15 years. But I still love them, and as with so many other things, they just don’t make them the way they used to. So I was rather excited when I discovered a UK seller that seems to have quite a few old style Filofaxes for sale, seemingly brand new stock that must have been sitting somewhere for at least 25 years.

The ones I was looking at were all pocket size “slim” organizers, without the snap closure. They have the old 4-ring set-up, which is not compatible with today’s inserts. (They used to make pocket size inserts with holes sized to fit both the old 4-ring binders and the current 6-ring binders, but apparently they discontinued them in 2015.) But if you have a stash of old inserts, or are willing to punch your own, these vintage pocket Filofaxes could be a great find!

This one is exactly the same as one I bought about 25 years ago and posted about here: Pocket Filofax, Early 1990s.

burgundy vintage pocket filofax slim style on ebay

They also have it in other colors. If I remember correctly, this leather is kid leather– it’s really supple and soft and beautiful. Here’s mine, which was cut down to a slimmer size.

notebook stories collection vintage pocket filofax
My beloved old Filofax from the 90s
vintage pocket filofax in navy kid leather on ebay

I also have one of these Filofaxes in my collection:

vintage pocket filofax on ebay

I might even have two, I’ll have to look when I get all my notebook boxes out of storage! It has larger rings than the super-slim ones above, and the leather is a bit more stiff and sturdy. It was a daily carry for me for a while.

The seller is called cosmoszero. They are based in the UK so shipping is almost as much as the item price, but I think they are still an amazing value. You just don’t see leather organizers like this anymore. (Please note: I have not bought anything from this seller and can’t vouch for the quality or authenticity of these items. My opinions above are just based on what I can see in the eBay listings, so if you are interested, please study them carefully and buy at your own risk. And of course, these may have been purchased by the time you are reading this.)

Art, creativity, Moleskine, My Collection, new products, Sketchbook

Is Moleskine Discontinuing the Pocket Sketchbook???

1 Comment

I was looking through Moleskine’s Fall 2019 catalog and noticed something I found quite shocking: it seems that Moleskine is discontinuing the pocket sketchbook.

moleskine pocket sketchbook discontinued
Moleskine is discontinuing the pocket sketchbook

“While stocks last“?? Meaning there won’t be any more stock of the classic black pocket size Moleskine Sketchbook? (Or any other color in pocket size.) They have a bazillion products and the one they decide to discontinue is a long-standing favorite of so many creative types? I know a lot of people use the larger size. And I know that nowadays there are other pocket sketchbook options out there with better paper, like Stillman and Birn. And as I myself have complained, the quality and construction just aren’t as good as they used to be. But really?? Really, Moleskine??

I find this absolutely baffling. Even if sales have declined a lot from Moleskine’s heyday, I find it hard to believe that the pocket size Sketchbook is unprofitable or somehow not worth it for them to produce. I looked back at some figures I was able to get from the Bookscan system that tracks publishing industry sales– it only captures numbers from book retailers (including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target, and independent bookstores, but not art supply stores, gift stores, etc.) but should be relatively indicative of overall market trends. While the pocket sketchbook sells less than half what the large sketchbook sells in that channel, and way, way less than what lined notebooks sell, there are many other Moleskine items that sell a fraction of the pocket sketchbook quantity and still seem to be active in their catalog. And at least in the book channel, sales for the pocket sketchbook had been increasing year on year from 2015 through 2018. I would guess they are selling at least 20,000 a year in the USA alone. Is that really not enough?

They seem to be pushing the newer Medium size (4.5 x 7″) in various products and as you can see in the image above, they’ve just introduced medium size sketchbooks in 3 colors (black, red and sapphire blue. That’s nice. I think the medium size is attractive, even though it’s not going to fit in many pockets. But I’ve been using the 3.5 x 5.5″ format for decades, so I’m not going to just switch. I’m sure a lot of other people would feel the same way. I have such a nice collection going of journals and sketchbooks in this size– it already includes some non-Moleskine notebooks, and I’d much rather mix in other brands than try to squeeze a different size into these boxes!

my collections of notebooks. Journals and sketchbooks from Moleskine and other brands including Nolty, HandBook Artist Journal, Leda, Art Alternatives, Hahnemuhle
My completed journals and sketchbooks since about 2001.

Unfortunately, I haven’t yet discovered an alternative to the Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook that offers a similar heavy but smooth paper in a hardcover. The closest I’ve found was Art Alternatives’ heavy weight Pen & Ink sketchbook but they’ve changed it to a diagonal elastic closure. Leuchtturm makes a sketchbook with nice heavy paper but the texture is different, and of course it is 3.5 x 6″. Stillman and Birn makes great sketchbooks with so many options, but if you want a 3.5 x 5.5″ size, they only offer softcover. HandBook and Hahnemuhle have nice pocket sketchbooks with hardcovers, elastic closure and back pockets, but the paper isn’t smooth. So I guess I’ll still just hope to spot some old Moleskine sketchbooks on eBay, though the supply seems to be drying up. I hadn’t been actively buying the recently manufactured ones anyway, but if I didn’t have a pretty good stash of spares, I would be buying them, grumpily.

You would think Moleskine would do some sort of analysis and realize that they have a product that doesn’t really have any direct competition with all the same features– so if they weren’t able to sell enough to make it profitable, they could just raise the price and some of us would be crazy enough to keep buying them!

As for other new products from Moleskine, the bullet journal-intended notebook that they showed off in Japan is finally being launched in the US. Instead of calling it the “Bullet Notebook,” they’re calling it the “Logbook,” which I guess is their way of trying to seem different, or not get sued, or something. If you want a dotted notebook with somewhat heavier pages, in the 5×8″ format, it might be worth a try.

moleskine logbook with dotted pages, index and 120 GSM paper

There are also some new larger format Watercolor Blocks. I’m not sure why they are expanding their watercolor paper offerings so much lately, as this is definitely an area with a lot of competition from well-established art supply brands.

moleskine watercolor blocks large format tear-off watercolor paper

I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I’d love to be a fly on the wall in Moleskine’s strategic planning meetings… smh…

antique, Fun & Weird, Links, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping, Scientific

Century-Old Salmon-Smeared Notebooks 

1 Comment

Sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? A fishy old notebook? But this is actually a pretty cool story!

One day in June 1919, workers in a busy Canadian cannery in Port Essington rushed to clean, cook, and can the bright red flesh of a huge number of sockeye salmon hauled from the nearby Skeena River. Watching the frenzy was a government “fisheries overseer” named Robert Gibson. Periodically, Gibson selected a fish, scraped off a few scales, and affixed them to the pages of a small notebook using the salmon’s own slime. Next to each sample—he collected a total of 125 on this day—Gibson wrote the weight, length, sex, and catch date. A U.S. fish biologist hired by British Columbia would follow up by calculating each fish’s age with the then-new technique of using a microscope to count the growth rings visible on the scales, much as botanists age a tree.

The dozens of notebooks Gibson filled with scaly fish slime were thrown in a box and forgotten until they were rediscovered 23 years ago. Now scientists are analyzing the salmon DNA in the notebooks in order to study and compare to today’s salmon population.

Read more: Century-old salmon-smeared notebooks reveal past bounty of fisheries

Journal, Links, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping, Travel Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

A Journalist’s Monsoon Journal

Leave a comment

A very poignant article from the Sept. 1, 2019 New York Times: Waiting for the Monsoon, Discovering a Brain Tumor Instead. The photo of reporter Rod Nordland’s journal was what caught my eye, but the whole story is well worth reading. A few brief excerpts below, focusing, of course, on the journal, though there is a lot more to the tale…

I routinely give titles to my journals, in which I have long recorded interviews, appointments, odd thoughts and cris de coeur. My journal commencing June 17, 2019, is called, “Waiting for the Monsoon.” …
On the morning of July 4, I left Delhi for Uttar Pradesh to report a story on India’s feverish toilet-building campaign. I was out on the street most of the day, when I noticed ink in my journal was smudged with raindrops. “The monsoon has arrived,” I noted.

The smudged page also contained a fragment of overheard conversation: “We will marry our daughter to you only if you have a foot.” It was the first line of an intriguing story I would never write, because the next day I went for a morning jog in Delhi’s beautiful Lodhi Gardens.

That is really the last thing I remember with certainty. I only learned later that I had, somehow, made my way from the gardens to New Delhi’s Golf Course Colony, several miles away.

This is where a malignant brain tumor, as yet undiagnosed, struck me down and left me thrashing on the ground. …

My journal picks up again on July 8, a Monday, with the pages of the preceding weekend blank, as if they had disappeared from my life. I noted the absence with dismay. At that point, I had been moved to a private hospital, and my journal was full of puzzlement about what had happened. 

Read more: Waiting for the Monsoon, Discovering a Brain Tumor Instead

creativity, Journal, Links, productivity, Writing Notebooks

What if You Love Journals but Hate Journaling?

5 Comments

Many people have the problem of loving notebooks but not knowing how to fill them, as described in this article by Claire Swinarski:

As a writer, I’m often gifted journals. I’m also a total sucker for beautiful notebooks and can spend way too long perusing the paper section at Target. That means I’m the owner of a thick stack of pretty journals, just waiting to be filled with scribbles. But I have a confession:
I’m not much of a journaler.

However, she recognizes the benefits of journaling and provides some helpful prompts that will help anyone get writing!

Journaling prompts can be helpful for those of us who dread staring at a blank page. However, a lot of the typical “what you did today” prompts feel a bit stale to me. I simply have no desire to do a breakdown of my day, which so often involves dull activities like checking email or handing my kids fruit snacks. I want to embrace creativity within my journaling and really dig deep into my thoughts and emotions.
If you’re like me, it can sometimes require a bit of outside-the-box thinking to have an effective journaling session. Here are ten journaling prompts to help all of us who struggle to journal find the creative juices we need.

  • If you could change one thing about what happened today, what would it be?
  • How would the best version of yourself have handled the day?

Read the rest at Verily: Outside-the-Box Journaling Prompts for People Who Hate Journaling

Art, creativity, Links, Moleskine, Other People's Notebooks, Sketchbook

Dasha Egudkina’s Sketchbooks

Leave a comment

Isn’t this flower stunning? I love sketchbooks that surprise you with big spreads of saturated color!

study of van gogh sunflower by dasha egudkina
Dasha Egudkina, Study of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in gouache

The painting is by artist Dasha Egudkina, who says:

I carry about three sketchbooks with me at all times. For the rare occasion I am not, I have a pocket sized Moleskine. Besides a few exceptions, often made for the larger books, I have been drawing, painting or collaging the covers for about ten years. What may simply be a stack of bound paper means more to me than I would often like to admit, and painting the cover has become a sort of ritual for me.

This is the cover of one of her other sketchbooks:

Dasha Egudkina Sketchbook cover in gouache – Winter 2018-2019

Read more: Sketchbooks that tell a story

antique, Art, books, creativity, Diary, Journal, Links, Other People's Notebooks, record-keeping, Sketchbook, Travel Notebooks, Writing Notebooks

Delacroix’s Notebooks, Now in English

1 Comment

Some of my favorite images from artists’ sketchbooks are from Eugene Delacroix’s travel notebooks. A new book now translates his notes into English for the first time.

Eugène Delacroix, a page from his notebook for 15 March 1832 Â© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) / Gérard Blot

In 1832 the 34-year-old Eugène Delacroix, already well known for his Orientalist works, accompanied a French diplomatic mission to Morocco and travelled through Algeria and Andalusia. His exposure to these places made him realise how limited and stereotypical his ideas had been about the “Orient” and thereafter fired his imagination. He wrote extensively about his experiences in several notebooks, noting the places he visited (shown here, a sketch for 15 March 1832: “Went into the mountains and, after some way, discovered the great valley in which Meknes [Morocco] is located.”), his routes, the scenes he witnessed and the people he met. He published two articles from this material which are included in this book which is the first time his notebooks (along with a newly discovered fifth notebook) have been translated into English by the scholar, Michèle Hannoosh.

Read more: The Travel Books of Eugene Delacroix Have Now Been Translated Into English

Buy the book: Journey to the Maghreb and Andalusia, 1832: The Travel Notebooks and Other Writings (I’m not sure from the description whether this new book contains any illustrations of the notebook pages– it may just be a translation of the text. The illustrations can be seen in other books such as this one: Delacroix in Morocco)

Other People's Notebooks

Notebook in “Widows”

4 Comments

Another sighting of an interesting notebook, this time in the movie Widows. I won’t get into any plot details that might be spoilers, but here’s a couple screen shots of the notebook.

It looks to be approximately 5 x 8″, a nicely broken-in leather cover containing a squared notebook. It seems quite thick, but there are obviously other pieces of paper tucked in. The paper looks like it could be a Moleskine, but in the brief glimpses you get of the spine, there doesn’t seem to be a hard black cover. It could be one of their softcover notebooks in a lighter color, or perhaps some other brand. Anyone else have any guesses?

Art Alternatives, Daiso, Diary, Journal, Moleskine, My Collection, Nolty, Organization, Pen & Ink, Personal, Sketchbook

Vacation Notebooks and Art Supplies

6 Comments

I’m enjoying a week at the beach, and thought I’d share what notebooks and pens and art supplies I brought with me. Since I traveled by car, I didn’t have to worry about packing light!

First, here’s what is in my bag every day, which of course I didn’t change for my vacation:

There is an almost-full Moleskine sketchbook, a squared Moleskine used for daily notes and journaling, and my Nolty diary/planner/logbook. My daily carry writing implements are a couple of Uniball Signo RT 0.38s, a Uniball StyleFit multi-pen, and a Caran d’Ache mechanical pencil used mainly for drawing.

The rest of my supplies are in these small cases, which I keep in a large tote bag along with my laptop, chargers and books/magazines.

The small orange case holds my fountain pens. I refilled them all before I left, but I haven’t actually been using them yet on this vacation– I go through phases where I use some of them a lot, and then phases when I don’t. From left, these are a vintage Waterman, a Pilot Metropolitan, a Daiso pen given to me by a friend, a Pilot Justus, a Pilot Falcon SF, another Pilot Metropolitan, a Platinum Preppy, a TWSBI Eco, two Lamy Safaris, and another Platinum Preppy. Most of these are used in my notebook review pen tests.

This small black case is what I usually use for a stripped-down drawing kit. I keep changing what pens and pencils I keep in it. Currently, it’s a wide Uniball Signo, some Faber Castell pencils, one of which is water-soluble for blending, some Pigma Micron pens, a Kaweco lead holder, a Zebra extra fine brush pen, and a mechanical pencil from Daiso. A ruler from Muji has also crept in there.

The larger mesh pouch holds a pretty random assortment of supplies, and sometimes I stuff the other small cases in there too. There’s a Winsor and Newton watercolor set, a replacement half pan of a color I use a lot, a small bottle for water, some erasers, a fude nib fountain pen, a mop brush, a water brush, some binder clips, a pencil sharpener, some Post-It flags, a Muji glue stick and some refills for the Daiso mechanical pencil. There is also a little bag with a lens cleaning cloth in it– not sure why, as I usually keep that with a separate bag of camera accessories.

Also in my totebag: some additional notebooks. The Moleskine watercolor sketchbook (bottom left) only has one spread left empty, so I also brought a Pen & Ink watercolor book (top left) that I had started a little when I did a watercolor sketchbook comparison review. My regular Moleskine Sketchbook is also almost finished, so I brought a new one, which I may or may not need to use before the end of the trip. I was also going to bring a spare squared Moleskine, but that notebook is only about 2/3 done so I guess I decided I wasn’t likely to need it. Although now that I’ve realized it isn’t with me, I feel a little nervous!

All in all, I feel like I have more stuff with me than I need. I’d like to have a more simplified kit, but I’m always trying different things to see what I like best. What notebooks and supplies do you carry with you?

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