I am a devoted Moleskine user, and read many complaints about the recent quality of these beloved books. If you look at the fine print on the back of your moleskines you may find that it is now labeled "Bound and Printed In China" "Designed and Packaged in Italy."

Upon discovering this, I contacted my supplier, and what he has of the original ones are already on it's way to me. I suddenly feel like Van Gogh. /:)

Correction, it was Chatwin who stock piled them. :doh:

I read about this on Moleskinerie but I checked the ones I bought (in the UK) and couldn't see any mention of where it was made. :/

If it doesn't say where it was made, then those are the original ones. Next time you are in the book stores, check the labels. Our B&N carries only China ones now.

Has anyone used the ones made in China? Are they noticeably worse quality than the old ones? As far as FP-friendliness goes the paper in Moleskines are not that good to begin with, so how could it get worse I had some old ones I bought over 2 years ago and have been using them but I'm almost out. I still like the size of their pocket notebook and the design. I guess I go over to Borders today and see what they have.

I suppose that this could mean that the difference between a Moleskine pocket journal and a PaperBlanks pocket journal is about to get smaller. The PaperBlanks item is an obvious copycat of the Moleskine item, and if Moleskine is now made in China just like PaperBlanks, well ...

Just came back from local Borders. All of their Pocket squared notebooks were "old" ones, and all of their ruled ones were "Printed and bound in China-Designed and assembled in Italy". I bought one of each. With the ruled one, the only place that indicated where it was made was the orange paper "band" that you would take off when start using it. I wrote a couple lines in the new one, and the paper quality is about the same as this year's (2006) daily planner; slight feathering & a lot of bleed through. Unfortunately I gave away old ruled ones I had because of ink bleed through, and I can't directly compare. But I always thought squared notebook bled through less than ruled ones or planners so the real test is when I get the new squared one, I guess.

The "old" ones all had free stickers or postcard packaged on the back of the notebook and slightly narrower rubber band. However my oldest Moleskine has thicker band, so I don't know if it varies from batch to batch :ph34r:

I don't see the problem. 'Made in China' is not synonymous with 'poor quality' these days if it ever was. It is my experience that you can source well-manufactured goods and poorly-manufactured ones from pretty much anywhere in the world.

Ray

Very true regarding paper quality and who's manufacturing them. However, we do know there's a change in who is manufacturing them, so it's quite possible some sort of change (better or worse) may happen. So, reading reviews of paper quality of the new batch in comparison to the old will be interesting. For all we know the paper is better and they decided to make them in China due to cost-savings and paper quality. Let's try 'em out and observe the results!

Currently the local stock at Border's is a little under half = Italian make. I've got enough Italian made ones for a while- let me know if anyone tries them out and what they think.

Cheers!
-Allen

Well, yes. And it's not as if Moleskine paper is especially good anyway. I can go to my local supermarket and buy 100 sheets of A4 that is as good or better, spiral bound between hard covers, for a quarter of the price of a pocket Moleskine. The Chinese have been making paper for centuries, still use fountain pens more than we do in the West, their costs are low, and Moleskine's margins are huge - there will only be a problem keeping standards if Moleskine literally don't care.

Moleskinerie had some discussions on this recently, and someone who claimed to be 'in the know' said they've always been made in China, it's just that they didn't label them as such until just recently. They said they've always been outsourced, but they may have been outsourced to a different factory now, as people do seem to be noticing some differences in recent ones.

So, it does seem like the recent ones have had more quality problems, but the 'good' ones were made in China too.

Unless, of course, this 'source' was just a random lunatic posting made-up stuff on a message board.

Then again, maybe I am a random lunatic posting made-up stuff on a message board.

Hi - I heard lots of quality issues with batches of
Moleskines made in China.

I personally had only the issue of the ink bleeding
through on some pages. Funny enough not on all pages.

I'm running out of my current notebook and had to get
new ones. I found some on Amazon.co.uk and ordered
three of them for much less than in my local shop.

If anyone is interested to learn where they are
coming from please let me know.

cheers
Marcus

Aren't we all!

Good Afternoon,
I have received my Moleskines from Amazon.co.uk yesterday,
opened them straight away to find out where they were
printed ...

Here is what I found: There is nothing menioned anywhere
that they were printed or produced in China so I assume
they are from the older batches. But they have a Quality
Control Number to be used when reporting any errors back to
Moleskine.

So I am a happy man now for the months to come knowing that
the China batches have passed me this time.
If you want to order them via Amazon, here you go:

Moleskine @ Amazon.co.uk

Good luck.
Marcus

They've only recently started putting those in, I think - it's part of their efforts to track down where the quality problems are happening.

If it's got one of those numbers, I'm pretty sure it's made in China, but it is at least from after they realised there was a problem, and started trying to sort things out.

I have seen Moleskines where it actually said on the green
or orange banner that they were printed in China. The ones
I have got now, do not say this.
Maybe they have taken it off though due to the many issues
reported.

Nevertheless, I'm personally happy with my Moleskines and
will continue using them.

regards
Marcus

Same here:)

I'll stop buying them now that I know this. It has nothing to do with quality or price for me. I prefer not to buy things made in China for political reasons.

Tony