I recently received a sept couleur B6 notebook that I ordered from papeterie nota bene in Montreal. Price: $5.60 CAD plus associated taxes and shipping. I was somewhat amused to purchase a notebook with a French product name that was made in Japan, from a shop in Montreal. The global marketplace wins my heart again.

The notebook is 80 sheets of B6-sized paper, 7mm x 24 lines. It has a stiff, but not inflexible plastic cover with subtle raised diagonal lines marked into it. Behind the front cover is a blank coversheet. This keeps the writing on the first lined page of the notebook from being visible through the transparent cover. The coversheet is an ideal place for writing your contact information, or sticking a book plate or ID sticker of some sort. A small decal near the bottom of the front cover gives the name of the notebook, as well as symbols indicating that the notebook can be used while traveling or at home. Good to know!

The back cover is essentially identical to the front, with a small product decal including the UPC code. There is no back cover sheet.

There are seven colors of cover available, hence, sept couleur. The notebook is bound with a double coil of polished metal.

The paper (75g/m) is white, but not overly bright. The lines are unobtrusive and don't interfere with fountain pen ink. The pages are smooth to the touch, similar to the feel of Apica paper, without feeling "coated". Each page has a fine perforation located a few mm past the coil binding. The pages are easy to separate from the notebook.

I tested a page using a Lamy Vista F nib, a Lamy Al-Star M nib, a Lamy Accent M nib, and a Waterman Phileas M nib. The inks were Lamy Violet, PR Midnight Blues, Lamy Black, and Waterman Florida Blue respectively.

The overall writing experience was smooth and pleasant. The ink drying time seemed to be slightly faster than with Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper. This trait is consistent with Apica paper, another very good Japanese product. All of the pens glided across the page with a decent degree of smoothness, with no traces of feathering or bleed from any of the inks, including the particularly juicy Waterman.

If you like coil-bound notebooks, you will like the sept couleur line. I prefer the smaller B6 size, but nota bene offers a larger B5 version as well.

Cheers,
A.J.