Fountain Pens & Typewriters: March 2013

Friday, March 29, 2013

Another Fountain Pen Friendly Notebook from Books-A-Million

Here is another very affordable notebook I found at our local book store:

The paper in this notebook is a good quality paper and it is not as shiny as the paper in some of the other notebooks that I posted in this blog. This is an example. The notebook in the example has a shine to the paper's finish similar to many non-fountain pen friendly paper, but the paper is fine with a fountain pen. The Piccadilly paper is not shiny.

This Piccadilly notebook is almost twice as expensive, but still half that of a Moleskine. The notebook example, Moleskine and this Piccadilly all come from China.

The paper in this latest notebook has a nice finish almost like a Moleskine, but not quite as rough. The inks I tried did not feather nor did they bleed through the page nearly as much as the same inks that I used with my Moleskine notebooks.

It seems the older I get the less I spell correctly. Here are the pen and ink combinations I used complete with a reference (corrected) to a wrong ink and my mis-spelled words.

All of the pens I used wrote smoothly on this paper. I did, and do, not like narrow ruled paper for fountain pens. I usually just write on every other line so I can make my letters at least readable. When I print I seldom use every other line.

The notebook is a bound notebook of 240 pages. The band states it is medium ruled, but if laid beside a college ruled notebook the spacing is nearly the same. The leatherette covering feels much the same as my Moleskine notebooks, and this notebook also has a rear cover pocket for those who like those. I do find the pockets handy at times, especially when I travel and use a pocket notebook. The cover pocket makes a nice place to hide money or credit cards since the notebook does not resemble a wallet.

As shown the ink does shadow a bit, but does not bleed through. I have used other notebooks and papers with pencil and ball point or roller pens that do the same as this example.

The notebook pages are 8.25 inches (210 mm) long and 5 1/8 inches (129 mm) wide.
Fully open the notebook is 10 1/4 inches (260mm) wide. Closed the notebook is 5/8 inch (16mm) thick.

The notebook has an elastic band closure and a ribbon page marker.

Overall I like this notebook and plan to buy and use more. Quality-wise this is a much better buy than a Moleskine. One day I will try a Rhodia.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Montana

1950 Montana Luxe

Original Type Bar Rest

Type bars did not align.

Some cork was missing.

The shades were really flattened areas of paint that needed to wrinkle again to match the rest of the housing. This may have been caused by me towel drying some places harder than others or even from holding the housing in that area, or it could have been normal wear that I did not notice before cleaning.