A Daily Carry for National Stationery Day

It is, apparently, national stationery day today, so here's what came with me to work in the Carradice today;

Some Paper, Today.

Top left - on top, a Rhodia No.11 pad, with 5x5 bloc paper (in a Rhodia e-Pure cover), my pocket Filofax, & plain Moleskine pocket reporter (being used up for pencil sketches &c). Rightmost is my Nomadic PE-10 pencil case.  Bottom left is a square WH Smith sketchpad, and underneath them all is an A5 Black 'n' Red notebook (that actually stays at work).

The No.11 Rhodia pads are great for sticking in a back pocket & carrying about for quick notes &c.  They have really nice, fountain pen friendly paper too.

I use the Filofax for organising both calendar, and, in the notes pages at the back, tasks (using a modified GtD type system).  I find the Pocket is better than the Personal (slightly too large) or mini (much to small) for bike carriage, personally.

You might think it odd that I carry a Moleskine, given my much tweeted disdain for their paper - having paid for the thing before I knew better, I'm determined to use it up.  Besides, pencil works ok on it, after all.

The WH Smith sketchpad isn't normally resident in this bag, but I had an idea I'd hoped to work on at lunch today that its square format is perfect for.

Some pens, pencils &c Today.

Most of these live in the Nomadic case - the exception is the leftmost pen, a Pelikan Steno that resides in the pen loop of my pocket Filofax.  Sadly discontinued, this is a terrific little pen with an interesting extra fine flexible nib.  Its intended use is shorthand notation (Pitman), and the flex allows the line variation this script relies on to convey meanings.  This pen is filled with the businesslike Pelikan Blue/Black ink, this, and the EF nib are a great combination for the small spaces in my planner.

Next along the line is a Staedtler Marsmicro mechanical pencil.  This is the 0.9mm version, with Pentel AIN lead (B grade).  

Then we have the Uni Ball Signo Broad, with white Pigment ink.  A lot of fun on dark papers, and one of the few white ink pens to lay down a nicely opaque line.

Next to the Signo is my old Staedtler Marsmatic (0.5mm).  I filled this in a fit of nostalgia, having forgotten just how scratchy it is - once I've run the ink down, I think it'll go back in the pen drawer.

A trio of Stainless Steel Parker Jotters is next. Ballpoint (with a Parker Gel ink refill, much nicer than the standard one), fountain pen (filled with Parker Quink Black, this writes a wet, medium width line), and pencil (0.5mm Pentel AIN lead, in 2H grade).

Lastly, a Staedtler Rasoplast eraser, and a cartridge that's probably Diamine Dark Brown, and one that definitely is.

Some stuff, today.

At the top of the picture are my post-it index tabs. I find these really useful for marking pages.

Below those are three cartridges, Parker Quink black, Lamy black, and Lamy purple.

Next is my blue Worther Shorty clutch pencil.  I love these little things, and have three - they take a soft (7B) 3.15mm lead, and are great for quick, loose sketches.

Below that is my Rotring Esprit - an interesting telescopic mini pen (although not as compact as something like the Kaweco Sport).  Long discontinued under the Rotring name, they were briefly sold as the Parker Esprit (also discontinued).  They still turn up "new old stock" on eBay from time to time.  Mine is filled with Monteverde Burgundy ink at the moment.

Then we have my Schneider Base - despite the limitation of coming in medium (or left handed medium) only, this is an inexpensive, reliable daily writer.  At the moment, it has Diamine Turquoise in, a colour just the right side of business like, but fun nonetheless.  It's my only "left handed" pen.

Lastly, a Lamy Vista.  Essentially a transparent Safari, this is a wonderfully reliable workhorse pen.  Mine has an EF nib (again, those small planner spaces), but the beauty of the Lamy Safari, Vista and AL-Star is that nibs are readily swapped in and out, right up to the wide calligraphy nibs used by the Lamy Joy pens.  I'd recommend getting your Safari or Vista from the link (I get no kickback from that) as The Writing Desk will ship with the nib width you request (even the calligraphy nib) saving you £4 buying the nib separately.  Their price for Vistas, Safaris and Al-Stars with convertors (for using bottled ink) is excellent too. 

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Notebook Review - Staples Eco Notebook, A5

The Staples "Eco Easy" notebook is a spiral bound notebook, with 160 ruled pages (80 sheets), and board covers. Its pages are Bagasse paper, made from 80% recycled sugar cane processing waste, hence the "Eco" title. I bought mine in their Manchester store, for the rrp of £2.49. The cover you see in the picture above is a brown paper foldover cover, that can be removed to reveal a plainer board cover.

For those of you worried about the variability of the paper in these (mentioned in some other reviews) the product code on this notebook is #37537-EU

The front of the book, with a Moleskine pocket notebook on it for scale.

Inside the front cover is a "pocket page" formed from a heavier brown paper page, folded back on itself with a third or so of the lower portion folded up to make a crude pocket. It's not something I'd use, personally, but I rarely use the pockets in other notebooks, so may not be the best judge of the utility of this feature!

The sheets are perforated, and double punched to allow them to be removed and stored in ring binders.

The binding, again with a Moleskine pocket notebook for scale.

The spiral binding is done with what seems to me to be a pretty big coil - my personal feeling is that this makes the book a bit of a pain to carry around, although the pages do turn easily compared to books with more compact spirals (Pukka Pads, for example). The spiral doesn't seem to interfere with writing on the page, so long as you write to the long side of the perforation and margin; you may find it more problematic if you like to use the entire page. The beefiness of the coil does give me some confidence that it wouldn't be damaged by relatively rough treatment - you could throw this pad in the bottom of a bag, and be reasonably confident you could still turn the pages after the rest of your posessions had tried to squash the spiral!

The paper is an orangey sort of cream colour to my eye, and the ruling is a complimentary orangey brown, spaced at 8mm. A margin is ruled on the left of the page, at 14.5 mm from the perforation, and 29mm from the bound side's edge of the page. My feeling is that paper has more "tooth" (the "scratchy" feeling as a nib moves over the page) than the paper in my Rhodia bloc pads, but not to an unpleasant degree.

INK TESTS:

The paper handles most inks pretty well - there's some feathering from Waterman's Havana Brown, and Diamine Amazing Amethyst, which I'd expect, after tests of these inks on other papers. I detect a small amount of feathering from Quink Black, but only if I look at closeups.

I think the only inks with "unzoomed" noticeable feathering are Diamine Dark Brown, and J. Herbin's Pousserie de Lune - even that doesn't seem too bad compared to their behaviour on the Moleskine & Ryman books I tested previously.

Some closeups;

and the top set;

Note that the lowest green ink is "Diamine Emerald", not "Emerale". That's what you get for writing ink test pages too late in the day, I guess.

The paper feels pretty thin, and that's borne out by the showthrough scan above (how visible the ink is when covered by a single sheet of blank paper).

The reverse of the pages show up the thin paper too, with the inks clearly legible from the reverse side of the page. This is a more controlled, less blotchy reverse page than I saw on either the Ryman or Moleskine though, and I think overall, that's better.

IN SUMMARY

If you like spiral bound pads, this is a good bet at a relatively cheap price, if you can live with a somewhat over engineered coil in the binding, and the relatively thin paper. Do bear in mind that the paper in these pads has been known to vary in quality - the usual advice is to check the product code, and country of origin, and buy pads from the same batch, if you like your sample!

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Ryman Softcover Notebook (Pocket) vs Pocket Moleskine

Ryman are a UK stationers, with both High Street stores, and an internet shopping presence. The notebook featured here is also available in an A5 size, which costs £5.99 (and is included in the current 2 for 1 offer, making the A5 book effectively £3).

Ryman's pocket notebook (as tested here) currently costs £4.99 (although with their buy one get one free they are effectively £2.50 each). A pocket Moleskine costs between £6 (Amazon) and £10.

Both pocket and A5 books come in Purple, Red, Brown and Black covers, each having 192 sheets of cream paper.

Side by side - hopefully you can see that the Ryman notebook (right) is just slightly larger. The Moleskine here is a hardcover, although comparison with my softcover Moleskine planners suggest that the Ryman cover is somewhat stiffer.

Both books have 192 pages (96 sheets). As you can see, the Ryman book is slightly thicker, indicating a heavier weight of paper. This is borne out by the feel of the pages - the pages in the Ryman are smoother, and do seem thicker. The ruling is darker than in the Moleskine, and spaced at 6mm.

The rear is stamped with Ryman's logotype. Neither this, nor the smooth cover look quite as nice as the Moleskine logotype & cover. The Ryman book has an elastic closure, a woven ribbon as a placemarker, and a pocket at the rear cover, just like any notebook of this type. (The brown is actually darker than it appears here).

Ink Tests

In all images, the top page is from the Ryman book, the lower from the Moleskine.

Bleed through test - the reverse of the pages after being written on.

Show through test - how visible the writing is when underneath a blank page.

The Ryman beats the Mole on showthrough (can you see writing through the facing page) and is slightly better (I think) on bleedthrough (can you see what you've written when you look at the back of the written page) although neither is great in that respect.

The Ryman loses on feathering for some inks (Waterman Havana Brown, Diamine Amazing Amethyst, and J. Herbin's Pousserie De Lune), although the Mole feathers more consistently (weird, tendril like growths from the letters, as though the ink is following the paper fibres). The Moleskine is definitely better at handling J. Herbin's Pousserie de Lune than the Ryman book.

Some closeups - Ink in the Ryman;

And the same inks in the Moleskine;

The top set from the Ryman;

and the Moleskine;

Neither book is a patch on Ciak, Rhodia or Quo Vadis products, which have far better paper - and to be fair, neither Ryman nor Moleskine position themselves as "fountain pen friendly" notebooks. However, the Ryman notebook, despite being cheaper, performs better than the pocket Moleskine for all but a couple of the inks I tested. The Moleskine is worse for show and bleedthrough than the Ryman product.

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