The Paper Plane - Peter Pauper Journal

[namrehsnoom]

The Paper Plane – Peter Pauper Jounal

 

 

 

I’ve been enjoying this little corner of the web for some time now, mainly focusing on inks and pens. But these are more or less useless without the humble paper or notebook that will let you capture your thoughts.  So here comes the “Paper Plane”, where I review some of the paper and notebooks that I’ve enjoyed using over the years. Today’s guest is the Peter Pauper notebook, and more specifically the bookbound version of this nice piece of stationary.

 

 

A bit of history (from the peterpauper.com website): “in 1928, at the age of twenty-two, Peter Beilenson began printing books on a small press in the basement of his parent’s home in Larchmont, New York. Peter – and later his wife, Edna – sought to create fine books that sold at prices even a pauper could afford. Today, still family owned and operated, Peter Pauper Press continues to honour its founders’ legacy – and its customers’ expectations – of beauty, quality and value.”

 

 

Peter Pauper journals look great, with truly beautiful cover designs. The question remains: are they also suited for writing with a fountain pen? With this review, I’ll try to answer that question.

 

For the purposes of this review, I got me a copy of the Haiku Journal – with a stunningly beautiful cover design. A piece of art that encourages you to set aside some time in the evening for quality journaling with just yourself, your pen and the paper. The size of the journal, 159x216mm or 6¼ by 8½ inch, is about standard A5 size (148x210mm).  Peter Pauper journals come in different sizes, and with a huge selection of beautiful cover designs, so you’re sure to find some that are to your liking.

 

 

The Haiku journal looks and feels high quality, and contains 160 pages of light ivory-coloured 120 gsm paper. A single ribbon is the only extra feature, and can be used as a bookmark. As far as I know, their journal series notebooks only come with 8mm lined paper. Which is a pitty, since I prefer blank pages for my journals. I like the open nature of that blank page, which gives you more creative freedom: you can draw, write large or small, horizontally or vertically … with a blank page, possibilities are endless. For me, the lined format is a negative. 

 

 

Another thing to be aware of: the margins in Peter Pauper notebooks are large … really huge... enormous... gigantic. Linespacing of 8mm is ridiculously wide, so in my notebook there’s only room for 22 lines of text per page – that’s not a lot! Even worse, margins are unnecessarily wide: 10mm left and right, 14mm at the bottom of the page and a whopping 24mm at the top. That’s a lot of wasted real estate (about 28% lost space per page). And yes, I know you can write on these parts, but writing outside the lines just doesn’t feel right to me… Another reason why I prefer blank pages. 

 

 

For a fountain pen user, the most important part of a journal is its paper. Let’s have a closer look to see if it’s fountain pen friendly. Peter Pauper paper has a nice off-white ivory colour, that is gentle on the eyes in any lighting conditions. It’s also acid-free paper, making it very durable – your notebooks will easily survive for centuries when proper care is taken. The 120 gsm paper is very smooth but still shows a bit of friction, resulting in a nice feel when writing on its surface. But there is something to be aware of: I noticed that your nibs write about a size wider when using this paper, i.e. an F nib shows like an M, and a medium nib writes like a broad. Strange but true. And I’m not the only one who noticed this – look around a bit on the internet, and you’ll find that this is an experience shared by many users. Not a huge deal, but certainly something to be aware of.

 

 

The paper itself is excellent, although colours look a bit muted (which I happen to like). Technically there are no complaints: no feathering, no see-through or bleed-through with normal use. On my test page, I tried some heavy saturation in some spots (writing multiple times over the same spot on the page) and it’s only in these circumstances that I succeeded in bleeding through the paper. This is certainly a notebook where fountain pens are at home. 

 

 

Conclusion

Peter Pauper journals look fantastic and are certainly fountain-pen friendly. For me personally though, there’s a couple of things that bother me. First and most important: please provide us with a blank page option! For me, the lined version just doesn't cut it – so much wasted space! A version with blank pages would elevate these notebooks to new heights! Second – you need to be aware that nibs write a size larger than usual. Not a huge deal, but also not what you would expect.

 

 For now, these Peter Pauper notebooks are absolutely no competition for my Paperblanks journals. But give them blank pages, and I would certainly be tempted! As far as I’m concerned, leaving out the lines would be a true game-changer… Peter Pauper Press… are you hearing me?

 

[LizEF]

Thank you, @namrehsnoom!  Love these reviews.  Were money no object, I'm the sort of person who would buy every lovely journal I find even if there was no hope of using all of them.  I really appreciate hearing the ins and outs of these from someone I trust rather than some random Amazon reviewer.   I agree that the line spacing is far less (or in this case greater) than ideal.  I do find that well-written text with large margins tends to look nice, but that's not really the point of journals...  At least I know that if I ever get one, I can use my 1.1 stub or broad nib without worrying about the line spacing being too tight...

[Mercian]

Thank you!

I am pleased (& grateful) to see you branching out in to informative reviews of paper, in addition to your superb reviews of inks and pens 😊

 

The fact that the paper in this beautiful notebook causes ink to spread, and so ‘increase’ the width of one’s nibs, puts me off from buying them - my normal handwriting is a rushed, cramped, tiny scrawl, so I tend to prefer ‘F’, or even ‘EF’, nibs.

 

But this is of course precisely why reviews are useful - you have supplied us with enough information about the paper in this notebook that I now know that it would not suit me, and therefore that I should not buy it.

 

Slàinte,
M.

[Cjtamu]

Wonderful review. My wife loves her journals so following this thread with interest. Looking forward to the next.

[inkstainedruth]

I'll admit that I would likely write two lines for each printed line -- I do that already with the Miquelrius journals.

I picked up a Peter Pauper Press Jane Mosse "Falling Blossoms" pen a couple of months ago.  I figured that for roughly $20 US it would be worth trying a pen that came with a cartridge *and* a converter in the box.  Not a bad writer, but I don't remember offhand what the nib width on it is (thinking it's an F or an M).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[XYZZY]

Thanks, @namrehsnoom for the excellent review.  In spite of quickly arriving at "not for me" I still read to the end.

 

Your last photo looks like the pages are gilded.  Is that for real?  Good quality?  It looks like a really nicely notebook. 

 

 

On 4/21/2024 at 4:34 AM, namrehsnoom said:

And yes, I know you can write on these parts, but writing outside the lines just doesn’t feel right to me… Another reason why I prefer blank pages.

 

We are of like mind on that.