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Vintage Engineer's (?) Notebook


jbb

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I found a few charming, small-sized, vintage notebooks from an antiques vendor yesterday. They were, I suppose, used by engineers. Here are pictures. Were these sorts of notebooks common? Is there a modern equivalent? BTW, the paper is nice for fountain & dip pens.

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4717487778_6c99fba3df_b.jpg

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4017/4716845499_29f7e32e1c_b.jpg

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/4716845907_c7ec9cfc1d_b.jpg

 

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/4717489702_7c334ee6dd_b.jpg

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They were used by surveyors and civil engineers all throughout the country from the 1880s up until, well, today. They're still made, actually, by companies including Rite-in-the-Rain. Among other things, most of the water-main and sewage systems in large parts of the country were laboriously recorded in these things over the years, and most public works departments will have a room full of the books, all (hopefully) numbered and indexed in some fairly arcane way.

 

It's rather faded, but here's a specimen from Saint Paul, MN, circa February 1891, and here's a clearer example from June 1957.

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Here in the UK the Chartwell company produce a range of surveyors notebooks. Some of my colleagues at work still use them.

Yesterday is history.

Tomorrow is a mystery.

Today is a gift.

That's why it's called the present

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I've been using these since my undergrad days. They were the classic Fieldbooks for jotting down our Anthro/Archaeo field studies. Mostly with India Inks and Rapidiographs. The Classical Brown covered book , with a mole like pocket in the back, were the 403F Model from Dietzgen. You could pick them up in the Uni Book Stores or Blueprint facilities in big cities. I have all of mine back to the 1964 era. Kiowa notes, NAC Peyote Ceremony, Sioux Sun Dance at Green Grass, RVN, Oman with the Brits and Trucial Oman Scouts, up to yesterdays notes on a Swan BCHR Purchase. They work well with any FP and almost any ink combo. No Feathering, no bleed through. I write on both sides of the page, no problem. I have always used a piece of paper for a blotter/page marker to prevent smears. Fit in your pocket nicely or better in your book bag. Dietzgen, is no longer locatable , on my on line searches. ELAN makes them in all configurations. Mostly I use the lined only now, no need for grids to sketch excavations. If you Google Engineering Notebooks, one of the first 10 listed sites, has 6 packs of the Orange Covered Elans at about $42. So they are quite nice price and function wise. About 4.25 x 6.70 inches. SOKIA makes them in a Yellow cover. Did I mention I think they are great, Jim

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I've been using these since my undergrad days. They were the classic Fieldbooks for jotting down our Anthro/Archaeo field studies. Mostly with India Inks and Rapidiographs. The Classical Brown covered book , with a mole like pocket in the back, were the 403F Model from Dietzgen. You could pick them up in the Uni Book Stores or Blueprint facilities in big cities. I have all of mine back to the 1964 era. Kiowa notes, NAC Peyote Ceremony, Sioux Sun Dance at Green Grass, RVN, Oman with the Brits and Trucial Oman Scouts, up to yesterdays notes on a Swan BCHR Purchase. They work well with any FP and almost any ink combo. No Feathering, no bleed through. I write on both sides of the page, no problem. I have always used a piece of paper for a blotter/page marker to prevent smears. Fit in your pocket nicely or better in your book bag. Dietzgen, is no longer locatable , on my on line searches. ELAN makes them in all configurations. Mostly I use the lined only now, no need for grids to sketch excavations. If you Google Engineering Notebooks, one of the first 10 listed sites, has 6 packs of the Orange Covered Elans at about $42. So they are quite nice price and function wise. About 4.25 x 6.70 inches. SOKIA makes them in a Yellow cover. Did I mention I think they are great, Jim

 

I'm excited to learn that these books still exist. They seem wonderful. I saw those Elan ones on-line and they're quite affordable. I wonder what else I don't know. :headsmack:

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That is SO Cool!!! I'm jealous and would love to find something like that. I typically use moleskine or leuchtteurm1917 books and insert photocopies of the tech data I use.

Science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.

-Carl Sagan

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That is SO Cool!!! I'm jealous and would love to find something like that. I typically use moleskine or leuchtteurm1917 books and insert photocopies of the tech data I use.

I'm kinda open to the possibility of selling one. :ninja:

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If no one else shows any interest in say 48 H, PM me. I'd be interested, for nostalgia's sake. I don't want to cause someone to miss out on this addiction. I've got about 3 Elan and 2 Sokia awaiting my attention. Current tracking says one notebook is a 4-6 mos active life. Jim

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Damn, I was just getting ready to start a post titled "I hate this sub-forum, it's gotten so BORING" when this post comes up and changes my mind completely. ;-)

http://i59.tinypic.com/ekfh5f.jpg

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They are nice notebooks and I use them when I'm in the field. Just note that the paper is treated to be archival so some gel pens and FPs will smear if not given the time to dry completely.

 

 

I like the orange covers as I always know where it is.

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Isn't it great to discover something unexpected and have it open your eyes to new thoughts. I wonder what other professions or trades had notebooks designed for their specific needs with interesting page rulings, and why.

 

Indeed, why the intersting rulings on the two pages of this book?

 

Here we have a whole new reason to go poking around flea markets, old bookshops etc :thumbup:

 

Chris

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Isn't it great to discover something unexpected and have it open your eyes to new thoughts. I wonder what other professions or trades had notebooks designed for their specific needs with interesting page rulings, and why.

 

Indeed, why the intersting rulings on the two pages of this book?

 

Here we have a whole new reason to go poking around flea markets, old bookshops etc :thumbup:

 

Chris

Old ledger book paper is generally wonderful to write on.

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Ha, found an old ledger in a box in the garage. I imagine it was some sort of cash/finance book as it was foolscap in size and had columns for £sd. The paper had a slight brown tinge at the edges and smelled of damp, musty corners you find in some secondhand bookshops :sick:

 

It may be older than me.

 

I don't know whether it is nice to write on - the pong put me off.

 

Chris

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Ha, found an old ledger in a box in the garage. I imagine it was some sort of cash/finance book as it was foolscap in size and had columns for £sd. The paper had a slight brown tinge at the edges and smelled of damp, musty corners you find in some secondhand bookshops :sick:

 

It may be older than me.

 

I don't know whether it is nice to write on - the pong put me off.

 

Chris

 

I think some of my old leger books started out smelling musty but are now aired out and don't seem to have that smell. (I had to look up the word "pong" -- I'd never heard that idiom before.) :headsmack: I do adore writing on ledger paper -- particularly with dip pens. I have pages of an old falling apart ledger book that I've been using to write letters.

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Indeed, why the intersting rulings on the two pages of this book?

 

 

It's been years since my surveying class but the left side is for the data and the right side is for sketching the lines.

 

 

 

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Nice find. If you live close to a college or university, check their bookstore. If they have an engineering program, they should have these in stock. They will usually be the cheaper spiral bound versions, though. These books also come in several different formats. Here is a pdf showing some of the different types.

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So, data on the left ans sketches on the right.

Thanks also for the link to other interesting layouts.

 

I wonder what sort of instructions are given to students or employees as to which books to buy and why? Just curious, but it brought back memories of physics classes where it was writing oon the lines and diagrams and graphs on the graph paper pages.

 

Chris

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Okok, I know that I'm not 18 any more, but there's no need to call me a "vintage engineer", just for having one of these in the briefcase ;(

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Okok, I know that I'm not 18 any more, but there's no need to call me a "vintage engineer", just for having one of these in the briefcase ;(

:headsmack: Oops, I guess that ought to have been Engineer's Vintage Notebook.

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This is a trivia tip...but for musty-smelling books/ledgers, etc. you can put them in brown bags with the pages open and the bag will absorb a lot of the dampness and ....pong?

My life is full of mistakes. They're like pebbles that make a good road.

Beatrice Wood

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