Paperchase

Goodbye to Paperchase.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 14 Comments

In recent weeks we have witnessed the disappearance of another well-loved chain of shops from our high streets and shopping malls. Now the UK’s Paperchase stationery stores have closed.

This means the loss of 106 stores, 28 concession stands (in shops such as Next and Selfridges) and the loss of some 820 jobs. As well as being a familiar presence in the shopping centres, there were Paperchase shops at some railway stations too.

At the eleventh hour, the supermarket giant Tesco stepped in and acquired the Paperchase brand. It remains to be seen what they will do with it. The Paperchase shops are gone. If you click on Paperchase’s web site, you are now diverted to Tesco and greeted with a message that Paperchase online and UK Paperchase stores are now closed and that “we look forward to bringing this well loved brand to Tesco.”

Paperchase was founded in 1968 and grew to be a familiar sight, along with stationers Rymans and WHSmiths. The branches were not all identical but were bright and inviting to browse in, featuring a large selection of greeting cards, shelves offering numerous styles of notebooks in all shapes and sizes, tables of toys and novelty products appealing to children, loads of stationery accessories, pots of colourful pens and, in some stores, displays of fountain pens in glass cabinets. These might included Parker, Cross and Kaweco and a few others although generally none too expensive for an impulse buy.

The Paperchase logo on the back of a journal.

Over the years, I visited Paperchase a lot. If my wife and I came across a Paperchase we would pop in for a look round and often buy something.

Today, looking around my writing space (aka the dining room) I rounded up just some of the products that had come from Paperchase, for a team photo. These ranged from packets of standard international cartridges in a variety pack (I seem to remember that they had once cost £2.50 for a bag of 50), through literally dozens of notebooks, pads of writing paper and file paper, to a few memorable pen purchases.

A quick round up of just some of my Paperchase purchases over the years.

If you chose a fountain pen from the display cabinet, the staff often struggled to locate the box. My favourite Paperchase story (told here before) is of once buying a handsome Cross Century II fountain pen in black with a chrome cap, at the price marked on the display. Several months later, I was in the same shop and saw the matching Cross ball pen and asked to buy it. This time, they were unable to find the box and its code in order to sell it. Eventually, it transpired that it could be sold only as part of a set with the fountain pen. After proving that I had bought the fountain pen already, they agreed that the ball pen was mine too!

Loose cartridges from my first variety pack. I have a lot of pinks left.

I remember where I was when I bought my first Kaweco Perkeo: it was the Paperchase shop in St Peter Port, Guernsey. The pen was a success and I later stocked up on about five more, in various colours. This pre-dated my same behaviour with the Cross Bailey Light, although those were not from Paperchase.

However, my greatest dependence on Paperchase, was for notebooks and journals. I remember discovering the little chunky black A6 journals with a staggering 600 pages of squared, fountain pen friendly paper. I bought a couple of those and was sorry when on a later visit, they seemed to have ceased selling them. But then I later found them back in stock again a year or two later, I binged on another three! They were great, such as for jotting down trivia when watching tv or listening to music online. They would last for ages.

One of my favourite Paperchase products. Actually 600 pages.

Paperchase had a wide choice of journals. Some had paper that was not fountain pen friendly. I liked the A6 flexi-covered books, nicely stitched, with 320 pages of either lined paper (8mm line spacing) or plain paper, both of which were great for fountain pens. They were usually £8.00 each and occasionally reduced in a sale. I tended to buy more than I needed (an understatement).

Paperchase A6 journals, of various designs.

For larger, A5 journals, Paperchase once sold journals with bonded black leather covers, with 384 pages of smooth, lined paper, with a generous 10mm row height. I used these for more lasting projects, such as memories of my school days and would enjoy writing in these with various fountain pens and inks.

A few of the more luxurious, bonded leather covered journals.

Paperchase also had an online service, although I did not use it as I was well served with branches in London. But I did make use of their loyalty card. If presented when making a purchase, you would be given an offer with your receipt, for a discount on your next purchase, subject to various conditions. I once bought some pads of file paper, only to be told that there was nothing to pay as it was all covered by accrued benefits. I was very fond of their pads of file paper, which I use at home and at work. Not only was the paper of good quality but also, the pages could be torn off the pad easily without ripping the paper, unlike some I have used.

Paperchase pads of white A4 file paper. They also had yellow paper.

The final months of Paperchase’s departure have been sad to see. I visited the branch in Windsor and bought a few more pads of file paper. The staff had just heard the news of the closures and did not know what the future held for them.

I was at the O2 Centre in Swiss Cottage when I saw the massive black-on-yellow posters in the shop window, announcing the closing down sale. I went in to look round, but most of the stock had gone. What was left was all discounted and it was unclear what the final price would be. I picked up a few small items, such as Lamy ball pen M16 refill, marked at £3.75 but which came to only fifty pence when rung on the till. Similarly, a clear plastic ruler was only a few pence.

One of Paperchase’s occasional, own-brand cartridge pens.

On visiting Bracknell recently, and also Southampton, the Paperchase stores were dark with their shutters down. I almost took a photo of the sad looking shop fronts, but it seemed like gloating.

I have been sorry to see Paperchase go. I will miss them. I read that the company had suffered years of plummeting sales and soaring costs and was a victim of the Covid lockdowns and the growing shift to online shopping.

But we had many good years. I will wait to see what becomes of Tesco’s involvement. If some of the better notebooks and journals can be offered through Tesco’s many stores, this will be some consolation.

Paperchase NOTO journal (large, brown) review. A lesson in line spacing.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 8 Comments

Buying a new journal is a wonderful thing. There is the anticipation of unwrapping it and opening its crisp new pages, trying out the paper and putting it into service, with all the potential enjoyment that this offers.

While prowling the aisles at Paperchase recently, I picked up this Paperchase NOTO journal. Available in different colours and sizes, I first saw a smaller, black covered version, unwrapped for display. The nicest thing about it is the leather-look cover, which does look very much like leather with its mottled tones and grain. It feels like leather too, soft and pleasant to the touch.

I decided to get the larger one, in brown, which appeared to be A5 (although not exactly), with an elastic loop closure, a ribbon page marker and 224 ruled pages.

This was sealed in shrink-wrap and so the only other visible indication of its specifications was on a paper insert saying “specially handmade for Paperchase in Italy using recycled paper” and bearing a symbol of ruled lines and then the price sticker on the back: “LRG JOURNAL NOTO BROWN 120 PAGE”, made in Italy, and the price. On Paperchase’s own website, where you can order online, the description includes the statement, “Being made in Italy especially for Paperchase, it has natural quality and style”.

As a veteran of notebook purchases, I now have a three-point routine on getting my new notebook home. First, is to number the pages. I find this inexplicably soothing and satisfying. There were 224, not 120. Second, is to try various fountain pen and ink combinations, starting from the back pages. This gives you a good sense of the type of paper that you are dealing with and its limitations, as you check for bleed through, absorbancy (or woolliness and feathering) and show through. It also overcomes first page nerves.

The third thing, (which I have now learned from purchasing this notebook) is to check the line spacing properly, preferably before you buy. I am a wide line person. Given the choice when buying a pad of file paper, of wide or narrow line spacing, I pick the wide.

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Paperchase NOTO journal with Tesco cartridge/converter pen

 

I had not before measured what line spacing I liked and at what point the narrowness veers towards irritation and annoyance. However a simple and accurate check can be made by counting the rows in your new notebook, measuring the total height of those rows and then dividing the total height by the number of rows.

In the case of the Paperchase NOTO (large), you have 26 rows in which to write, measuring 182mm in total, which gives a row height of 7mm.

I noticed that this was somewhat narrower than the spacing on the paper insert behind the shrink wrap would suggest,  which I later measured as 44mm / 5 = 8.8mm. I also noticed that the page lines do not quite go to the edge of the paper, but stop with a margin of 9mm. Ha! This means that you cannot see the ends of the printed lines when looking at the closed notebook sideways on, which might have given you an idea of whether the line spacing is suitable or not, when the book is sealed in shrink wrap.

This led me to get out a pile of different notebooks and journals that I had used, of varying line widths, to find my preferred row height. What I learned from this exercise, is that most of these had a line width of 8.00mm or above. The widest (another Paperchase A5 journal with bonded leather cover) actually gave a very generous 10mm. The worst, was a Ryman A5 diary which I had very nearly given up on after a few days’ use, having a stingey line width of just 5.8mm. This annoyed me every day for a year. On some days I wrote on alternate lines.

A difference between 8mm and 7mm might not sound much, but it is a drop of 12.5%.

Coming back to the NOTO, it does feel well made, with proper stitched binding. The pages measure 142mm x 210mm, (which I think is just slightly narrower than A5, but the same height). The paper is of a cream or ivory colour. The weight in gsm is not given but it is reasonably thick and not flimsy. It is a recycled paper, acid free, chlorine free and pH neutral.

I do like the appearance and feel of the leather-look cover. It remains to be seen how this will wear over time if carried around.

Having bought it specifically to use with fountain pens, I was eager to try some. Whilst the paper looks and feels smooth and pleasant, it did seem a little on the absorbant and fibrous side, leading to a slightly wide and woolly line. Some feathering can be seen, especially if examined under a loupe. I have used other Paperchase notebooks with crisper results. Waterman Tender Purple ink in a Platinum 3776 Century, produced a particularly high level of bleed through. Conway Stewart Tavy, by Diamine, (my current favourite blue black) in a Kaweco Dia 2, also suffered bleed through, such that the other side of the page was border-line unusable. On the other hand, Waterman Audacious Red ink which I currently have in a Cross Century II, a Lamy Vista and Noodlers Ahab, fared well although you can produce bleed through if you try, by adding some pressure for a wetter line.

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Bleed through, worst from Waterman Tender Purple ink in a broad nibbed Platinum 3776 Century.

 

For black inks, I remembered my Sailor Kiwa-guro black pigment ink. I tried this first in a Platinum Preppy 0.5mm (medium nib). The ink performed well with this paper with no bleed through, minimal show through and with less feathering than with the other inks, thus giving a crisper edge to the lines. However the 0.5 nib was perhaps too wide for my smallish handwriting and for the 7mm line width.

The best match that I have found so far, is the same Sailor Kiwa-guro black ink but in a finer nib. I used a cheap, £2.00 cartridge pen from Tesco, a clear and red plastic demonstrator yet which has a nib that I particularly enjoy, unmarked but I would guess a medium/fine with a pleasant feedback. I use this with a converter.  I have often marveled at how good this pen is, defying its modest cost.

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Sailor Kiwa-guro black pigment ink used with a Tesco cartridge-converter pen. Performed particularly well on this recycled paper.

Since buying the NOTO journal, I have looked for reviews online. An old one from 9 April 2010 on FPN by ImolaS3, compared a variety of notebooks then available in the UK and concluded that the Paperchase NOTO was the best by far. I wonder whether the paper might perhaps have been different then from my example with its recycyled paper, since my experience was rather mixed, until I discovered a winning combination of pen and ink to pair with it.

In summary, I think this is a good-looking journal, in a practical, portable size. The 7mm line width is slightly narrower than my ideal row height but this is a matter of personal preference. The key issue is whether the paper will work for you. But if you are prepared to experiment a little to find which pen and ink combinations suit the paper, then you will be fine.

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End page. Acid free, Chlorine free, ph Neutral and Selected recycled fibres.

Paperchase Inky Swirls Open Spine Notebook review

~ rupertarzeian ~ 3 Comments

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Paperchase, Inky Swirls Open Spine notebook, with Cleo Skribent Classic Metal, piston filler.

For the notebook enthusiast, Paperchase has a lot to offer. For those unfamiliar with the name, Paperchase is a chain of high street stationery shops here in the UK, selling pens, greeting cards, novelty gifts and stationery supplies as well as numerous styles of notebooks. The shops are bright and attractive although the displays of fountain pens in spot-lit glass-shelved cabinets, are very uniform from branch to branch. You will never see a fountain pen displayed at an angle of other than 90 or 180 degrees on the shelf and equidistant from its neighbour. Not that this a bad thing particularly. I enjoy browsing and shopping there. They also have a loyalty card offering various special offers and benefits.

On a recent visit, I noticed a new type of notebook. Available with a choice of cover design, (I chose the Inky Swirls), this measures 216mm x 172mm (8.5 inches x 6.8 inches). It contains 288 pages, of cream (not quite white) paper, with headings “SUBJECT” and “DATE” at the top of each page. Lines are ruled, in a reasonably wide format that I like, giving 22 rows per page (not including your header and footer area).

What sets this note book apart however, is that the pages are sewn AND the notebook does not have a covered spine! At first glance, it looks like a book from which the spine has come off. Instead, you look directly upon the neat row of batches of sewn pages.

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The unusual exposed binding of the open spine notebook

The colourful front and back cardboard covers are attached, with dark grey end papers. The notebook is nicely bound, but the absence of a spine looks a bit odd at first.

The great advantage though, is that the notebook will open and lay flat easily at any page. This is quite unusual.

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Notebook opens flat with ease.

At home I paginated my notebook (surprisingly relaxing, thanks for asking) and then tried out a few different fountain pens on the last page to see how the paper behaved. I found it very smooth and pleasant to write on. However, the ink did bleed through the paper with most of the pen and ink combinations that I tried, to the extent that you might use only one side of each sheet, if you are fountain pen user. There were some combinations that fared better. My Cleo Skribent Classic with fine stainless steel nib (currently inked with Cross black) writes a very fine line and did not bleed through. Also My Pelikan M800, medium nib, with Graf von Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue did quite well at avoiding bleedthrough, (unless you let the nib linger too long in one spot). On the other hand, a very wet Sheaffer 100 with a Sheaffer Skrip blue cartridge, bled like a stuck pig.

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The back of a page, demonstrating bleedthrough from a Sheaffer 100 inked with Sheaffer Skrip blue cartridge.

In the UK we have a saying, that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. This set me thinking that perhaps there may be no such thing as not fountain pen friendly; you just need to find the right friend.

For example, I have been reading a very cheap penguin paperback edition of William Wordsworth Selected Poems.  The yellowed, coarse paper is of the type that you would probably not even consider writing on with a fountain pen. Ironically, some of the most beautiful poetry in the English language, printed on some of the worst paper. However with a bit of trial and error I found that the ultra fine Cleo Skribent Classic with Cross black is also able to write on this without undue feathering, bleed or showthrough. It is satisfying to find combinations which cater to a paper’s strengths or weaknesses.

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The Cleo Skribent Classic with stainless steel fine nib. There was no bleedthrough with Cross Black ink.  

I am fond of the cheap edition of Wordsworth’s poems. I don’t mind that the cover gets creased and dog-eared.  And I don’t need to feel too worried about scribbling in it. In a way, the Paperchase open spine notebook looks a little like a book that has been pre-loved and worn.  I rather like it.

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The Pelikan M800 likes this notebook. No bleedthrough, with Graf von Faber-Castell, Cobalt Blue.

A peek at the Perkeo; first impressions of the new Kaweco cartridge pen.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 13 Comments

A cruise ship holiday offers a wonderful opportunity for the fountain pen enthusiast, to spend a little time away, in new surroundings with a few select pens for journaling on the trip.

Our recent one-week cruise departed from Southampton, with visits to La Rochelle in France, Bilboa in Spain and finally, St Peter Port, Guernsey.  Being a novice at the modern cruise ship experience, I had not prepared myself much beyond planning which pens to bring.  While my wife was happily picking out which evening dresses to pack, I was looking forward particularly to sitting in our balcony cabin, with notebook and pen, to “unpack” a few thoughts and impressions of our travels.

Choosing which pens to bring from the “currently inked” selection in my pen cups, was a challenge, but an enjoyable one. I settled on the following:

  1. Lamy AL-star, Pacific Blue (with Lamy turquoise ink cartridges);
  2. Lamy AL-star, Charged Green (with syringe-filled cartridge of Graf von Faber-Castell Moss Green ink);
  3. Cleo Skribent, Classic Gold piston filler, with Graf von Faber-Castell Cobalt Blue ink); the ink colour reminds me of a Guernsey pullover;
  4. Cleo Skribent, Classic Metal piston filler, with Graf von Faber-Castell Moss Green ink);
  5. Faber-Castell School pen, with blue ink cartridge. A light-weight and reliable shirt pocket pen for the hasty note.

Admittedly, any one of these would have been sufficient on its own to use for a week, but I enjoyed each of them in turn.

I had hoped that the shore excursions might afford an opportunity to stumble across a charming local pen shop and browse among some unfamiliar brands of fountain pens and inks. However, having chosen to join guided tours for our visits to La Rochelle and Bilbao, there was limited time available for shopping.

It was not until day six, when spending a day wandering on our own at St Peter Port, that I spotted the familiar “Paperchase” shop sign and found a stationery shop looking just like any of their other branches in London. Nevertheless, starved of pen shops for almost a week I was interested to check whether their stock was any different from ours at home.

The glass cabinets displays of Cross, Kaweco and Parker pens and the hanging displays of Lamy Safaris and AL-stars were all very familiar. But then I had my first sighting of a Kaweco Perkeo, a recently released model, news of which had not yet reached me.

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Displayed in a clear plastic clam-shell style pack, I first noticed the “Cotton Candy” version, with a contrasting taupe coloured cap. I understand that cotton candy is the spun sugar confection that in the UK is known as candy floss. To me however, the colour of this pen puts me more in mind of salmon which would be a truer although perhaps less appealing description.

Beside this on the rack, there was another version called “Old Chambray” which denotes a blue-grey colour for the cap, with white barrel and section.

The pen has a stainless steel nib (made by Bock) familiar from the Kaweco Sport pocket pens. Indeed the pen is similar to the Kaweco Sport but larger all round and with a broader cap. The cap is eight sided whilst the barrel is sixteen sided. I have read that it is based upon another old Kaweco fountain pen.

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The main and most obvious difference is the length, with the Perkeo having a length, opened and unposted, of about 128mm (or 160mm posted), whilst the Kaweco Sport measures just around 100mm opened and unposted, (or around 133mm posted, as it is intended to be used). Thus the Perkeo is almost as long unposted, as the Sport is posted. Other differences are that the Perkeo section has three flat surfaces, or facets, intended to improve correct grip and that the cap of the Perkeo is broader and shorter than on the Sport and snaps on rather than being threaded.

The packaging shows three cartridges included although there are in fact four, since you find one more in the barrel, plus a blank, dummy cartridge already fitted in the section.

Deciding to buy one of each colour, I was keen to have a closer look at home and to ink them up. The nibs on both proved to be very smooth, with tines well-adjusted “out of the box” with a good ink flow thus giving a very pleasing, well lubricated writing experience. No complaints there.

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I have since read online that there are two other colour options, namely “Indian Summer” which is yellow and black, or “Bad Taste” which is coral pink and black.

I inked the Old Chambray model with one of the supplied cartridges of Kaweco blue ink. This is an excellent ink, a rich, dark royal blue. As for the Cotton Candy model, as I have rather too many pens already inked with blue, I inserted a dark blood-orange cartridge from an old bag of standard international cartridges in assorted colours from Paperchase that I had at home. (At £2.50 for a bag of 50, these are great value and give your pens a low running cost for high mileage writing).

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In summary my initial impressions are:-

Likes

  • good length, comfortable to use posted or unposted;
  • barrel has room for a spare cartridge;
  • strong resin material; a tough pen to use and carry around every day, such as for school use;
  • excellent stainless steel nib; smooth, optimum flow (wet but not overly so);
  • four Kaweco ink cartridges included with the pen;
  • firm snap on cap, with good inner cap fitted and an attractive metal Kaweco badge for the finial;
  • reasonable price; similar to the Lamy Safari.

Dislikes

  • three facets in the section; I would have preferred the section without these; however they are shorter than those on the Lamy Safari or AL-star and the pen barrel is sufficiently long, to avoid the facets and grip the pen higher up with thumb and forefinger over the contrasting coloured band at the end of the section and still have the barrel resting in the crook of your hand; or you may post the cap for even greater length;
  • colours are a bit garish and weird, unlike the more standard colours available for the Safari;
  • tough resin material and the snap-on cap (with no pocket clip) combine to give a functional but rather charmless, clunky, white board marker-pen feel.

Conclusions

Overall, this is a pen that writes very well, with a good quality German stainless steel nib. If you like the Kaweco Sport but wish it was a full sized pen that you could use unposted, then this may be the answer, being bigger and longer than the little Sport. For me, I would have preferred it without the facets on the grip section. As there are three of them they do narrow the grip and also do not quite coincide with the angle at which I like to hold the nib to the page. However I liked the pen despite this feature.

Finally, the irony of choosing a German pen as a souvenir from Guernsey, has not escaped me. Guernsey was occupied by Germany during the war and was not liberated until 9 May 1945, a date commemorated on several monuments around the pretty harbour area of St Peter Port.  The pens will still remind me of a brief and pleasant visit to the island. I did also buy some Guernsey Cream Fudge.

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Paperchase cartridge pen and coloured ink.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 2 Comments

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Happy Mothers’ Day, from London. Also, the clocks went forward today. Spring is officially here and we are now in British Summer Time and enjoying lighter evenings.

Today’s splash of colour comes from a recent visit to my local Paperchase stationery shop. As well as selling Cross, Kaweco, Lamy and Parker fountain pens they have a few of their own brand cartridge pens. I have tried three different models since July 2016, costing up to £6.00. This current blue demonstrator model is just £2.50 including three blue cartridges.

For this, you get a lightweight, plastic pen with a snap-on cap. The plastic pocket clip is quite springy and functional. The cap posts securely, giving a posted length of 150mm. The steel nib has no markings or breather hole but does have tipping material. It also has a wick between the nib and feed to help with ink supply. I would describe the nib as a medium.

The section is clear plastic and through this you can see the feed which is of a light blue plastic.

The pen takes a standard international cartridge but does not have room for a spare. The barrel has a hole at the end and so unlike the Platinum Preppy, this pen could not be converted to an eye-dropper fill.

Inking it up for the first time, it took a while and a bit of shaking before ink reached the nib but once it did, the writing experience was surprisingly smooth and I had no complaints about the ink flow. In fact it wrote with hardly any pressure. Do not expect a flex nib but you can get a little bit of line width variation, between sideways strokes with no pressure and downward strokes with some pressure.

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The pen also does reasonably well at starting up again after a few days of non-use, despite the absence of an inner cap.

At this price, it seems unfair to find fault but there is a sharp-edged step from the barrel down to the section which is rather uncomfortable, just where most people would grip the pen. Perhaps this was necessary in order to form the seal between the barrel and the snap-on cap but the comfort would be much improved if the moulded barrel could have a smooth edge.

Other than that, it is a colourful, handy and satisfactory little pen. I found that Paperchase also sells cute re-sealable bags of 20 coloured ink cartridges for £1.50 (as well as all black or all blue options) and so for a grand total of £4.00 you would be able to get by for a few months if you suddenly found yourself separated from any other writing implements. More likely perhaps, if you arrived in town and found that you had forgotten your preferred fountain pen, then a quick visit to Paperchase would get you back up and running for a minimal outlay.

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For accuracy, I should say that the coloured ink pack did not include blues, but there were three included with the pen. There were actually two more greens in the pack of 20, but instead I used the remaining blues for the rainbow.

I have not yet tried all the coloured inks. What I have learned though, is that “standard international cartridges” means standard in size and not ink quality and so if you have a preferred brand of ink cartridge of the same size, you may prefer to use an ink that you know. However, at just seven and a half pence per cartridge, you cannot really go wrong with these and there is a certain pleasure to be had from experiencing such a modestly priced combination of pen and ink.

 

 

 

Paperchase A6+ Flexi Linen Notebook review.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 4 Comments

wp-1489261822080.jpgMy liking for notebooks goes back to childhood when it was a treat to visit Arthur Birds, our local independent stationer and book seller in Ickenham, a villagey suburb on the outskirts of London. Then, as now, I appreciated good quality and for a notebook, that included having stitched binding so that you could open the book flat without risk of the pages breaking loose.

Today I am looking at a notebook from Paperchase. A sticker on the back cover describes this a COLOURED SQ GEO A6+ FLEXI LINEN NOTEBOOK. They are made in the UK and sell for £8.00. Happily I picked up mine for £4.00 during a sale.

The “coloured sq geo” refers to the cover design and there are several other options. This one consists of a geometric pattern of squares in shades of purple and white. It also  has purple endpapers, a matching purple bookmark and purple headband (the pretty piece of material like a small caterpiller at the top and bottom of the binding).

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The book contains 320 ruled pages of almost white (ivory?) paper, with a pleasantly generous line spacing. There are 17 rows to a page, measuring 137mm (not including the top and bottom margins) and so this means each row has a height of 8.059mm. Personally I find this ideal as I am not so keen on narrow line spacing.

I should mention that the book is actually larger than A6. I assume that this is why it is called A6+. The pages measure 163mm x 119mm and the covers are slightly larger all round, to protect the paper. This is a very useful and convenient size to carry in a bag or large coat pocket without being too bulky and heavy.

The cover material is hard to identify. It does have a pleasant texture and the covers are flexible, but I am not sure if it is linen. Whilst it has a cloth-bound feel, I would guess it to be some sort of man-made material, but whatever it is, it is nice to hold and feels tough and hard wearing.

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The binding, I am delighted to say, is very well done, with 10 sewn batches of folded leaves and a pleasing, rounded fore edge to the leaves. The book can be flexed in the hand as you flick through the pages, yet the cover seems sturdy and protective. All in all it feels very well made.

The paper is very smooth to the touch and of an ideal weight, being neither too thin and see-through nor too thick and stiff. The weight is not stated. I would guess it to be a little heavier than your typical 70 or 80gsm office paper and so perhaps somewhere around 100gsm.

For the fountain pen user, the paper is smooth and I have not experienced any feathering or bleeding with any pen and ink combinations that I have tried so far. Show-through is minimal. I would describe this as fountain pen friendly paper.  I would just caution that if you have a very smooth, highly polished nib, it may skate around on this paper and struggle to lay ink down. I think it needs a nib which is a little “toothy” to make the best use of this paper. Recently I have been enjoying a new Cleo Skribent piston-fill fountain pen with a stainless steel, fine nib. The paper is not overly absorbent and the ink does not spread and so a very fine nib does produce a very fine line. The nib on the Cleo Skribent is quite amazing and with no pressure will lay down a line on even the smoothest of papers.

When I buy a new notebook I like to try out a few different pens on the back page to check for feathering and bleeding and general fountain pen friendliness. I then like to paginate it, with pencil or ballpoint pen so that I can go through the whole book quite quickly.

I was sufficiently delighted with this book to go back for two more, even though these were back at the usual price of £8.00. For the many hours of use that I will get from 320 pages, I think this is great value these days.

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Paperchase Soft Flexible Journal, a brief review.

~ rupertarzeian ~ 3 Comments

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I have recently come to the end of my first one of these. I had written the date in the front, 10 October 2015, so it has lasted me over a year. To give it its full title, this is the A6 Black 300 Page Leatherlook Note Book. It is made in Spain and sold by Paperchase, a chain of stationery shops here in the UK.

However, according to my dictionary, a “leaf” is the term for a portion of a book of which each side is a page. What they should have called this, is a 600 page note book.

600 pages! That is too many to paginate, but also too many not to paginate. I did in fact chose to paginate mine, although this takes a certain amount of fortitude and patience. You might not want to tackle it all in one sitting.

A6 size is approximately 6″ x 4″ or 150mm x 100mm and the book is 25mm thick. The black cover has a pleasant matte, leathery feel and is soft and flexible, like a paperback novel. The paper is white, with squares comprised of pale grey lines (yet on very close inspection these turn out to be more like a blue or purple). The line spacing is a little too narrow for single line writing unless you have very small handwriting but you may write on every other row, to give a generous wide line spacing if preferred.

The best thing about it though, is that the paper is remarkably fountain pen friendly. It is a 70gsm paper, smooth without being overly glossy and does not suffer from feathering or bleed-through. Show-through is minimal and so you can write on both sides and really make use of those 600 pages. For the purpose of this post, I did try using Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite (which is my “most-prone-to-bleed-through” ink) with a glass dip pen and having shaded a block of six squares in a pool of wet ink, I was able to produce just the beginnings of some bleed-through on the reverse, but you would not do this in normal writing conditions.

The pages (or leaves) appear to be glued rather than stitched, but the binding is strong and after a year’s use I have not had any pages breaking loose. You need to be a little careful not to crack it open too flat but the cover and spine are flexible and floppy. The cover will get a little creased and dog-eared with time. It is a good size to write with, on your knee.

I have enjoyed using it very much. Flicking back through, I see that I used it mostly for sampling various fountain pen and ink combinations, occasionally writing a list of what pens were inked and with which inks, records of purchases at pen shows, music that I had listened to, notes from TV documentaries, names of contestants and their professional dance partners in “Strictly Come Dancing” (doesn’t everyone do that? Oh.), colour samples of inks, doodles and sketches and just gratuitous fountain pen writing for no reason other than the joy and therapy of putting pen to paper.

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Once I realised how much I liked this notebook, I went to another branch to buy a spare and was disappointed to find that there was none in stock. I looked on line at Paperchase’s web site and found a statement that it was a  favourite but out of stock at that time. They seemed to disappear for a while. Back in the branch last December, I bought the closest equivalent that I could find, which was an Agenzio soft black, ruled notebook, with the same leather-effect cover, sewn (yay!) and with 384 pages,  but crucially for me, was not fountain pen friendly and every pen and ink that I tried bled through (with the exception of a Platinum Preppy extra-fine 0.2mm nib with a black cartridge) and so you could not use both sides of the paper with a fountain pen.

I kept an eye open for the 600 page notebook whenever I was in one of their stores and happily, they did reappear in time for me to buy another before finishing my first one. I was so delighted that I bought two of them. And then, inexplicably, another two.

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Here are the new notebooks, still with their protective sleeves, next to a Parker IM (new version) which I have included for scale. Keen-eyed readers may recognise that the pen rests are crafted from blocks of sponge which are part of the packaging of Pelikan Edelstein inks.

The notebooks are priced at £7.00. Finally, I have no affiliation with Paperchase (although I spend rather too much time in their shops) and am not paid or compensated in any way for this review. But these are great notebooks. Credit where it is due.