Homage to the composition notebook

[chkuo]

Just picked up a Norcom one at our local Walmart today. Curiously, I found there are at least two different batches, both are made in Brazil but with noticeable differences in the papers used. I got one that has the thicker paper.

 

It worked pretty well for me. There are some minor feathering/bleed-through with Diamin Monaco Red and Noodler's Forest Green but no problem with the other inks that I tried (Aurora Blue, Pelikan Black, Private Reserve Orange Crush, and Rohrer & Klingner Alt Bordeaux). The papers are kind of thin so there are some show-through but I have no problem with writing on both sides of a page. At $0.50 for a 100-sheet notebook, these are really great value.

[Gramakittycat]

Oh my with 7 kids I've been buying these for years and usualy a couple for myself.Now that they are out of school I buy them for myself and use them to journal in.As the years pass there are so many uestion they have and with my memory starting to slip I just stocked up at Walgreens where they are 3 for $1.99 on sale.Iwas neglected as to mu family history so there is a book for each one that Ican pass to each one when I leave this mortal plain.All the mishaps,adventures etc.and they can continue for theirchildren also.Simply,Gramakittycat :meow:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Garageboy]

Some USA printed ones from mead a while back had nice cold press paper. Now aways, it's a little hit or miss

[DanF]

Hey, I just found a stash of these at work, we give them to patients to use as journals. We have the Norcom Brazilian version. The paper is nice, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the handy "web reference" section on the inside front cover, where the first website listed is that of the Central Intelligence Agency.

 

Dan

[dhlr14454]

Silver54321: It is hard to find college-ruled composition books, yes. But, as bpholin notices, maybe the quad ruled would be a good alternative. I love graph paper.

 

A friend's nine-year-old daughter gave me a wide-ruled composition book with a crafted cover: some sort of cloth-like contact paper I think. I use that quite frequently at work, but only to take meeting notes (and I leave it in my desk). Nobody pays attention to the crafty notebook, actually; it is more that I'm usually the only person taking extensive notes. (I'm an academic, by the way, so our "business" aesthetic is a bit different, too.) The paper feathers a little, but not too much bleed through. It was a gift, though.

 

In college (twenty years ago) I used to use a series of 100 sheet college-ruled grey Borum & Pease Compostion Books. The university bookstore sold them as pseudo-lab notebooks I think. I still have one right here: item 09-9134, made by Esselte Pendaflex. The paper's fair: less feathery than my Moleskine. But they don't seem to be made anymore. The bookstore also sold a no-name grid notebook which was very similar. Both were great. And I liked the grey, semi-professional anonymity of the notebooks: I'm not a big fan of the marbled look. (That said, I have a Roaring Spring Quad Ruled 5 to 1" 100 page composition book [green, marbled] that is quite nice. No feathering or bleed through. Made in the USA, and highly recommended.)

 

But that's also the neat thing about a notebook that's only a couple bucks: you can always hack a composition book. This woman duct taped some for her kids:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clkl/420203727/

and these are a bit femme, but nice:

http://sweatersurgery.blogspot.com/2007/12...k-dress-up.html

I'd rather get creative with one of these than a Moleskine, if that were my thing.

 

This isn't a composition book, and I don't like its cover: "The Maker's Notebook." But I wonder how it might function. They claim the paper is good with fountain pens. From the "editor" of the notebook:

 

"The Notebook contains 150 pages of 1/10” engineering graph paper on a 60# Lynx Smooth Opaque recycled paper. It is designed to handle everything from mechanical pencils and fountain pens and sharpies. There’s also over 20 pages of reference material optimized for DIY projects, with everything from instructions on basic circuit testing with a digital multimeter, to how to chose LEDs, to what size needles to use in different sewing projects.

 

Besides the DIYers of Make and Craft magazines, we also designed the Maker’s Notebook to conform to the basic standards of laboratory and inventors/engineers notebooks. All pages are pre-numbered and non-removable. There’s a field on each page for project label, date, and designer and witness signatures. There are also “From Page___” and “To Page____” fields for threading project pages together."

 

Twenty bucks, though. And I could live without the 20 pages of reference material.

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596519414/

 

I really like lab note books, but they are often oddly sized, more like ledgers, and usually a bit expensive. Here's one for $53.00--which is way too much.

http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-...SSG21150R/08Q3/

 

And the Blueline DaVinci look nice at around $12.00, but I don't know. A forum search didn't bring up many references.

http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_...DP1413:CL142104

 

And, yes, not as inexpensive as the composition book.

Edited August 4, 2008 by dhlr14454

[freznow]

Great thread! I've always hated comps because of their wide ruled paper, but I have recently enjoyed some quad ruled pads and maybe it's time I give those a go!

[mwpannell]

Today I went to pick up some quad-ruled Staples composition books -- they were $2.99 each but they were made in Brazil. I figured what-the-heck, since I use quad books too I'd go ahead and pay the price for a couple while they were there.

 

Imagine my surprise when I checked out and they were actually on sale for 79-cents each! Yep, I picked up a few more.

 

Michael

[HerosNSuch]

Help me out here, comp book lovers, I just picked up a couple Staple's brand and YUCK! Is there one brand preferred over another? Are you all talking about the Mead in particular?

 

Staples just came out with a new eco-friendly version of their comp' books. They are a vast improvement over the previous in terms of paper quality.

[trent]

Mead Comp books in black, red, green and purple are on sale at Rite Aid for 50 cents apiece. Some are made in Vietnam and some in Brazil.

[trent]

PS

 

I have noticed that some of the comp books made in Vietnam have softer covers. The Brazilian ones have the standard stiff covers.

Edited August 5, 2008 by trent

[jakespeed]

If you are looking for these now would be the time to buy them...anywhere. With school starting up soon all the office supply/drug stores/grocery stores have supplies available for dirt cheap, and composition books are on most lists. Like mwpannell pointed out, deep discounts on these, but you have to hurry.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Here's my short tribute to and recommendation for the humble little composition notebook. Yes, those marbled-cover notebooks with 100 sewn pages that we all dreaded in Jr. High english class. Who whould have guessed that one of the cheapest notebooks you could find, usually relegated to the bottom shelf in the office supply section, would actually be a great all-purpose journal/workbook/project book that takes fountain pen ink like a champ.

 

OK, so the real reason for my devotion. They're CHEAP! Now, I prefer to call myself frugal, but these are officially cheap, but still great quality. I've done Moleskine and Apica, Claire Fontaine and HP 32#...all great notebooks and papers. But that was the problem. I always hestitated to write because they were TOO nice. It just didn't feel right jotting down field planting records or ideas for a new shed or random thoughts in something so nice. So, they all ended up on the shelf. (strange logic that wastes more money than writing in them I guess). But, you say, they have those ugly plain generic cardboard covers. Enter in Art at www.renaissance-art.com (no affiliation, very happy customer). For little investment I had a custom-made leather cover with the wrap/tie closure that made the simple little notebook classy, practical and nice to carry around. And the leather is Ooooooo so nice.

 

So what prompted my praise this evening? Well, a visit to WalMart this evening revealed Norcom composition notebooks (with the Made in Brazil paper, my favorite) for $0.50 EACH. I walked out with 2 cases of various colored notebooks (36 total) for the whopping price of $18. For a little more than the price of a single Moleskine I have 3,600 pages on which to write, doodle, plan, dream, sketch, and do whatever my pen desires.

 

So while I still have great respect for the top-shelf notebooks of the world (and those that use them faithfully) here's to my new friend and companion: the comp book.

 

 

Who dreaded them? Not me!

 

Wow, fifty cents each? Great catch! I still have some I got from Target with softish, plastic-y covers, waiting to be filled, along with the more conventional hard-cover sort.

 

PS: One of the many things I like about FPN is that no one thinks I'm mental for buying lots of notebooks.

Edited August 5, 2008 by Sailor Kenshin

[RevAaron]

I think we're talking about big comp books, but they do also make pocket comp books... But, most of the ones I've seen aren't sewn, but have wax-bound pages that fall out at whim. Paper isn't great either. I did find some at Walmart for $0.77 that *are* sewn and feel better than the full-sized off-brand and Mead comp books. Definitely recommend them for fans of non-fancy paper.

 

Aaron

[Steveareno]

Help me out here, comp book lovers, I just picked up a couple Staple's brand and YUCK! Is there one brand preferred over another? Are you all talking about the Mead in particular?

 

Staples just came out with a new eco-friendly version of their comp' books. They are a vast improvement over the previous in terms of paper quality.

 

I went by Staples and checked out their eco-friendly comp books. They have very nice kraft brown covers, three different designs (plain with a discreet Staples logo at a top corner; one with the word "Composition" printed in different sizes and blank lines for name, subject, etc.; and one with an attractive, abstract sort of feathery swoosh). The paper is made from bagasse, a by-product of sugar cane production. It's a sort of creamy, off-white with khaki colored lines (wide rule). I bought two and tried one out with my favorite gel pen (sorry, not a fountain pen user; I come here for the notebook threads) and was very impressed. Almost no "echo" on the back side of the paper, even though it feels about as thin as usual comp book paper.

 

There are on sale for .99 right now. Regularly they are $2.50.

[Steveareno]

I went by a college bookstore yesterday and found an interesting variation on the composition book. It's constructed like a composition book, with solid blue covers and blue binding tape, but a little taller and wider, with college ruled paper on light green paper (I've seen that shade of green described as "eye-ease" paper). The paper was much heavier than standard comp book paper, and the cover was something other than cardboard -- stiffer. The interesting thing was that this notebook had not a single brand identifier on it anywhere, so I have no idea who makes it. It was also about $9.00. I bought two.

 

Any composition book fans out there ever seen these before? Any idea who makes them?

[JD4020]

I went by a college bookstore yesterday and found an interesting variation on the composition book. It's constructed like a composition book, with solid blue covers and blue binding tape, but a little taller and wider, with college ruled paper on light green paper (I've seen that shade of green described as "eye-ease" paper). The paper was much heavier than standard comp book paper, and the cover was something other than cardboard -- stiffer. The interesting thing was that this notebook had not a single brand identifier on it anywhere, so I have no idea who makes it. It was also about $9.00. I bought two.

 

Any composition book fans out there ever seen these before? Any idea who makes them?

 

If they're like the ones our campus bookstore carries, they're likely National Brand (example at http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-...RED43571/08Q3/). There are a couple other mfg of these as well. Usually called chemistry or lab notebooks. I see many faculty carrying these around daily taking notes at meetings, in the field doing research, etc. These are the folks I learned discipline from as far as "write everything down, keep track, always carry a notebook."

 

Whatever brand our bookstore switched to lately, the quality of the blue lab notebooks has suffered. The paper is thinner than it used to be and bleeds through something fierce. But the 'eye-ease' paper color and pre-numbered pages are still nice.

[Steveareno]

I went by a college bookstore yesterday and found an interesting variation on the composition book. It's constructed like a composition book, with solid blue covers and blue binding tape, but a little taller and wider, with college ruled paper on light green paper (I've seen that shade of green described as "eye-ease" paper). The paper was much heavier than standard comp book paper, and the cover was something other than cardboard -- stiffer. The interesting thing was that this notebook had not a single brand identifier on it anywhere, so I have no idea who makes it. It was also about $9.00. I bought two.

 

Any composition book fans out there ever seen these before? Any idea who makes them?

 

If they're like the ones our campus bookstore carries, they're likely National Brand (example at http://www.officeworld.com/Worlds-Biggest-...RED43571/08Q3/). There are a couple other mfg of these as well. Usually called chemistry or lab notebooks. I see many faculty carrying these around daily taking notes at meetings, in the field doing research, etc. These are the folks I learned discipline from as far as "write everything down, keep track, always carry a notebook."

 

Whatever brand our bookstore switched to lately, the quality of the blue lab notebooks has suffered. The paper is thinner than it used to be and bleeds through something fierce. But the 'eye-ease' paper color and pre-numbered pages are still nice.

 

Actually, I think these are what I bought:

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TGZDQ...me=&seller=

 

They don't have numbered pages, but the paper is very nice. I've seen the version you describe, and the paper in those is more like the usual composition book paper.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Ooo, I think I have an old lab notebook that someone gave me. Never tried it out---now I'll have to!

[Fountainbass]

This thread got me really curious. I just snuck out of work & popped in the nearby Office Depot. I found a ton of the Vietnamese-made composition books in wide ruled & college ruled. I picked up 8 college ruled books for $0.99 each, and I'm truly impressed! I never would have thought a notebook so cheap would do so well with FPs. I just wrote a bit with my M800, and there's virtually no feathering on this paper. There's no real bleed through, but I can see what I've written from the reverse side of the page. But I don't think it's bad enough for me to avoid writing on the backs of the pages.

 

I might stock up on some more now that I'm going back to college!

[Steveareno]

Welcome to the club! At the college bookstore where I found the blue lab notebooks, they had stacks of Norcom college ruled composition books, made in Brazil (which seems to be the best paper available in standard comp books). I know Wal-Mart also stocks Norcom Brazil-made comp books, but as far as I can tell, only in wide rule.