Low-Profile FP-friendly Pocket Notebook?

[palaiophron]

Hi all,

This topic has almost surely been addressed around here, but I'm afraid I don't know what to search for. I'm looking for a pocket notebook, like the classic black Moleskine, but one that doesn't bleed horrendously with normal-ish fountain pens/ink (Pilot Metro w/ Noodler's HOD is my EDC, so maybe a little on the wet side), & maybe from a manufacture with a wee bit more quality control. I have the Rhodia take on the design, but it's just a little too round and bulky for my taste/convenient use. Thinner paper also would be preferable, but it's not imperative. I just want a sleek black pocket notebook that doesn't look/feel like it's wearing a vintage raincoat, & it's very hard to gauge these details based on pictures/specs from online retails. Any suggestions?

[arcfide]

Hrm, if the hardcovers are too bulky for you, you could try the soft cover threadbound stuff from Japan. Tsubame, Apica, Masuya Monokaki, and Midori I think all make a small pocket sized notebook with fountain pen friendly paper. You may want to find a cover for them to match if you want a hard cover though. 

 

 

[JulieParadise]

Life Noble Notebooks come in different sizes and paper varieties, also as cahiers suitable for any pocket. There are also many different A6/B6 sized notebooks and cahiers like the ones by Midori MD or even with Tomoe River Paper. You did mention Rhodia, Clairefontaine also. Galen Leather's TR notebooks come to mind here, which may be a nice option for you, depending on where in the world you are situated. 

 

Some of the ones I mentioned do not come with a simple black cover, but maybe a reusable outer cover is an option, which would nice to add a pace for your pen or to have an extra space to store small papers in that otherwise would float around. 

[txomsy]

I have been using Spanish Miquelrius for decades and it has never let me down. Good, reliable, nice paper, and available in thin or thick (200 pages) format. Liderpapel is another Spanish brand with very nice paper that I've sometimes found.

 

Recently I bought a German-made, Leabags leather notebook cover for notebooks 9x14cm (~10EUR in Amazon at EU). Very nice. So off I went to search for good, affordable 9x14 pocket notebooks.

 

Italian Moleskine (which is not the original,legendary French Moleskine) has many that size, but paper has been of decreasing quality in the last decade according to reports. They sell the typical, expensive notebooks and some cheap ones with cardboard cover and 64 pages that are sold in packs of 3 for ~8 EUR (the pack of three) in Amazon. I just ordered a bunch of them to try and expect them today. I'll report when they arrive.

 

But if one wants to be on the safe side, French Clairefontaine also sells 9x14cm notebooks at very good prices. 96 pages, gridded, 90gsm, with plastic (polypropylene) cover in random colors are sold at 2.74 apiece in Amazon. These I have and paper is typical Clairefontaine/Rhodia, i.e. very nice to FPs. Good price, more pages and assured quality.

 

Clairefontaine also has 9x14cm notebooks with black or red, leather-grain-like cardboard cover and 90gsm paper for ~4EUR each in Amazon. These I also have and same as the former, they are very nice to FPs. The difference is in the cover, so if you do not mind it, the former ones are better bang for the buck.

 

Note added: this may be too EU-centric and of less use to others abroad, who may face more expensive prices. Note, however, that being in EU, I have ordered items from US or Japan and the shipping price wasn't so onerous as to preclude the buy, even for items below the import tax threshold. Import taxes may not be an issue either unless one orders a large number of notebooks (say, more than 20 or 50 at once depending on your location). But one may order notebooks by the dozen, get a nice shipping quote and go under the radar of import taxes. And get served for quite a while. Even with taxes, it may still be worth.

[HobbitLife]

Midori Travelers Notebooks passport size are great and slightly smaller than a classic Field Notes size. They standard Midori paper is very FP friendly, and they also have a light version that I believe uses Tomoe River paper which is super thin. 

[bogiesan]

I use Moleskine, have for decades. Simple solution for using FPs with their terrible paper is to use only the recto side of each leaf. Halves the data density, I can tear out a sheet without compromising additional information, and finding stuff is much easier. 

[txomsy]

So, I got the Moleskine 64 page cardboard cover (Brown Kraft, pocket 9x14cm size, pack of 3) notebooks and tried one of them. The paper is certainly thinner than the Clairefontaine 96 page plastic-cover ones, and at the tact, they also have a different sizing and no apparent coating. I wrote some lines on them with various FPs (MB 146, Pelikan m200, Garant Alkor, Lamy Joy ...), nib points (EF, F, M, 1.1, ...) and inks (R&K Salix, R&K Scabiosa, MB Permanent blue...) and the behavior was generally acceptable, albeit with some show through that would not preclude using both sides of the page, except where I made a mistake and overwrote the text, which resulted in show-through at the other side of the page.

 

My impression is that it may be great for pencil drafting/sketching but that when used with wet inks or overwriting or laying more ink. it may render one side of the page unusable. So, if one is careful to choose fine point nibs and not-too-wet inks, they should be OK.

 

However, in my most humble and unreliable opinion, the Clairefontaine notebooks are a better choice: they use thicker paper (90 gsm), offer more pages (96), have better behavior with fountain pens, are PEFC (forest friendly) certified, and are cheaper. Moleskine is 70 g/m², offers less pages (64), is uncoated, which may be better for pencil drawing, and comes with sustainability forest-friendly FSC tags, the last 16 sheets are detachable, and should pose no problem with FPs unless (relatively) too much ink is laid over the page. For some, these conveniences may justify getting them despite their relative FP limitations.

 

I ordered 6 (two packs of 3) Moleskine Kraft notebooks and 8 Clairefontaine notebooks, and plan to take one each, a Moleskine and a Clairefontaine, in Leabags leather covers, for holidays. I will try to use them for taking notes with a Liliput carrying an FPnibs.com EF SemiFlex nib unit, for pencil sketching, and for drawing using a Kuretake brush pen (which should result in heavier ink loads). Hopefully by September I'll have a better informed opinion. Or not. It all depends on how much fun/spare time I get while traveling.

 

[Penguincollector]

Little pocket notebooks
I bought these lovely 80gsm pocket notebooks for my pen club’s ink extravaganza. They come blank and lined. I took one to try out and have used shimmer ink, Lie de Thé and 4001 Türkis.  Ink can show a bit on the other side if you’re like me and hold your pen on the page a bit too long..