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Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter A5 Organizer Review

June 22, 2014June 20, 2014 by Blake

I found out about this product back in December while listening to the Pen Addict podcast (thank you Myke Hurley).

If you don’t speak German, Roterfaden is the manufacturer and Taschenbegleiter is German for, “bag companion”. This is without doubt the coolest organizer I have ever had the pleasure of owning.

Roterfaden Tachenbegleiter with early 1950s Aurora 88. — Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter with early 1950s Aurora 88.

The Taschenbegleiter is a custom made-to-order organizer that utilizes a unique clip system that allows you to clip in all sorts of notebooks and loose paper.

Tachenbegleiter clips — Taschenbegleiter clips

The Taschenbegleiter comes in three standardized formats: A4, A5, and A6. For the outer cover you have two material choices (in multiple colors): dance floor and leather. Dance floor is a synthetic material that was originally used for (you guessed it) dance floors. I opted for the black leather option.

The black leather has a suede-like finish that is very soft to the touch. The Taschenbegleiter has a wonderful organic hand-made quality to it. Depending on the colors and options you choose it can be more casual look or more professional looking.

Roterfaden Tachenbegleiter — Few scuffs on the back from taking the Taschenbegleiter in and out of my bag.

For the inside material you again get two options for materials, suede and wool felt. I chose the blue wool felt and I also chose to have my name embroidered into the felt in a light blue thread and Interstate font. You can actually send them a picture and they will embroider it on the organizer!

Empty Tachenbegleiter with all the clips open — Empty Taschenbegleiter with all the clips open

There are various pocket configurations that include an option designed specifically for an iPad mini. Instead of pockets on the back cover you get 4 elastics that hold the iPad Minis corners. I chose the large pocket (which also fits an iPad) because it serves a dual purpose as a pocket for smaller notebooks like Field Notes and work as an iPad holder when I travel. The downside of course is that you have to pull out the iPad every time you want to use it.

There are more options still. You can have all the pen loops you want. You can have them on the bottom the top or the side (as I have on mine). If you like to use really fat pens you can specify the size of the pen you want to use and they will make the loops bigger.

You can also specify the number clips. The standard is three but you can have none, one, two or four if you request it. This is an important consideration because it will determine how much stuff you can put in your Tachenbegleiter and how fat it will be. Mine is about 1.5″ wide with the three clips in use…but you can make it even fatter if you really stuff it.

Roterfaden makes various refills and inserts for the Tachenbegleiter. They all look beautiful and are of excellent quality. Let me show you how I normally have mine loaded up:

I always fill from the back forward. This is the notepad. It comes with a cardboard cover and the pages are blank on one side and graph on the other. The pages are perforated so they tear off easily.

Next is the diary refill and three sheet protectors. — Next is the middle clip which I use to hold the diary refill and three sheet protectors.

Last up is the calendar. The clips work beautifully as book marks. — Last up is the calendar. The clips work beautifully as bookmarks.

Calendar refill with optional cardboard cover. Cell phone, memo pad and business cards in the cover pockets.

Here are some more pictures of the unusual diary refill which has a stave on one side and a dot grid on the other.

Notice that you can see glue and the red stitching on the spine. Also notice all the lovely signatures!

This is right in the middle of the notebook. Notice how flat it lies. — This is right in the middle of the notebook. It lies ultra flat.

I love the red stitching in particular. The different booklets have different papers. The calendar has 70g paper that does show some bleed through with fountain pens. The 80g paper in the diary booklet holds up well to fountain pen ink. If you write with a fat juicy nib you might get some light bleeding but nothing serious.

There is some minor show through and some pretty minimal bleed. — There is some minor show through and some bleed from the juicy OMAS nib.

I have not yet had the chance to sample the 120g drawing paper booklets. Most of the larger booklets have an optional cardboard cover and while they are not necessary they are nice to have as the booklets are otherwise protected by paper only.

Because the Taschenbegleiter comes in standard A series sizes you can put pretty much any A5 notebook in the organizer. I have also been able to put a standard Field Notes in one of the clips (top or bottom only). The new larger Field Notes Arts and Sciences notebooks work beautifully.

I have been using mine everyday for the last five months and there are some downsides. The main one being that it’s a pretty big organizer and its weight wont go unnoticed in you bag. For personal travel I tend to take my smaller Midori Travelers Notebook with me (maybe I need to get an A6 Taschenbegleiter).

The clips are also great for loose piece of paper and receipts. A folded A4 piece of paper will fit perfectly into the clips. — The clips are also great for loose pieces of paper and receipts. A folded A4 sheet of paper will fit perfectly into the clips.

The other downside is the price. It’s expensive, especially if you start adding options like a leather cover and embroidery. The basic A5 size runs 89€ or $120 USD (this includes VAT which is not applicable outside of Europe). With options mine came to $182 USD but with VAT removed (because I live in the USA) the organizer cost about $150 USD.

While expensive, I do believe you will have a hard time finding a better quality organizer for double or even triple the price. I have looked and I haven’t found anything close. The Taschenbegleiter is completely hand-made in Germany.

I love my Taschenbegleiter. It is a wonderful product and I recommend it to anyone in the market for a high-quality and highly adaptable organizer.

Calepino No 2 Pocket Notebooks Review

May 10, 2014 by Blake

Calepino appears to be the French equivalent of Field Notes. Calepino focuses on small pocket notebooks with a simple core line of 100% French-made notebooks numbered one through four. No 1 features a red striped cover with ruled paper, No 2, the version I purchased, has green stripes and grid paper, No 3 has blue stripes and blank paper and No 4 has grey stripes and a dot grid.

Notebook numbers 1-4 come in packs of 3 for $13 compared with Field Notes’ 3 for $10. The No 2 measures 3.5″ x 5.5″, though up against a Field Notes, the No 2 is a hair shorter and a hair wider. The page count is the same 48 pages. So are they better than Field Notes? Let’s find out!

The Calepino notebooks come in very nicely branded box that features the same design and same cardboard as the notebook covers. The inside of the box lists all the specs of notebooks much like on the back inside cover of a Field Notes.

The cardboard cover is much rougher than a standard Field Notes cover and is noticeably thicker. The cardboard is made by a company in the Creuse area of France that has been making cardboard since 1927. The design is quite nice but I definitely prefer the simplicity of the Field Notes covers. The Calepino has three fonts on the cover where Field Notes only has one.

Inside the cover is a place for your personal information and a place for the start and finish date.

The pages are made of a bright white recycled paper with a green grid. The 5 x 5 mm grid is a bit larger than the 4.7 mm x 4.7mm grid found on a standard Field Notes. I prefer the smaller grid and the light brown ink the Field Notes uses.

Field Notes on the left and Calepino on the right.

In my testing I found that the Calepino’s paper handled relatively well for a recycled paper. It does bleed and feather a bit but overall it holds ink better than the standard Field Notes paper. To my touch the Calepino paper is a bit rougher and it provides a bit more feedback when writing which I like.

Calepino No 2 Pocket Notebook The Calepino is bound with two staples vs Field Notes’ three. The back cover has a little blurb about the company (I hope you speak French) and a metric ruler.

I have been carrying around a Calepino for about a week now and I definitely like the notebook but I don’t like it better than Field Notes. I fold my covers over when I am writing on a page and the Calepino is noticeably less pliable than a Field Notes notebook. I can fold the cover over but its more difficult and the two staple binding does not do as nice a job of holding the pages in place.

The Calepino offers better paper and better packaging than Field Notes but in the end I prefer the softer cover and overall look and feel of Field Notes.

The Calepino limited editions are quite interesting and I hope to get my hands on a set. The Limited editions feature collaborations with artists and famous design houses. What I particularly like is that the limited editions I have seen come in sets that include other limited edition items like pencils, pens, buttons and bookmarks.

Here are links to some great reviews of Calepino notebooks:

(I have no affiliation to the sites linked below)

Notebook Stories – Review: Calepino Notebook

Pens! Paper! Pencils! – Calepino notebooks review

LIFE Noble Memo Pad and Cover B7 Review

May 9, 2014 by Blake

In recent years LIFE has become one of the most coveted brands of Japanese paper. It is generally more difficult to track down than my favorites Midori and Maruman. The prices of LIFE products in the US seem to be uncontrolled as they vary quite a bit and tend to be overpriced.

The product I will be reviewing is the B7 size LIFE Noble Memo Section pad and leatherette cover that I picked up on my recent trip to Japan.

The Memo pad features 100 cream colored sheets with a faint 5mm graph. The graph is printed on one side only; the back of the page is blank. The orange cover has a great vintage look to it with the black scrollwork boarder and raised gold and black “LIFE” letters.

LIFE Noble Memo Pad

This memo pad oozes quality. Everything on it is tight and the taped binding is one of the best I have seen. You can open up to the middle of the book and it will lay flat and then you can close it and you would have no idea that this book as ever been open.

The cream colored pages are very high quality. If you look at the blank side of the paper you will see that is ribbed. I tested the paper against Rhodia’s 80 GSM paper and found the dry time to be about equal. The LIFE paper is a bit thicker and is more resistant to bleeding. It took multiple strokes with my fat music nib to see any bleed. The grid lines seem to resist ink and while that doesn’t bother me it may bother some.

LIFE Noble Memo Pad — No bleed to speak of and minimal ghosting. If you look closely you can see the ribbing.

The cover is a brown leatherette that looks sorta like leather but definitely doesn’t feel like leather, that is to say anyone who touches it wont likely be fooled.

Pressed into the leatherette is “LIFE” and the same scroll work we saw on the paper cover. The fit and finish like the notepad is immaculate with beautifully aligned stitching. I have found that in addition to protecting the notepad the cover also helps keep the pad open when you are at the beginning of the pad. I really wish they did this thing in leather.

So what about the price? The notepad with notebook cover retails for 1,000 YEN which is just under $10 USD. In the US, unfortunately, the prices are considerably higher. I found the cover (no pad included) for $20 and I found the pad for $8. To me even with the unusual high quality, $28 is too much money for a little notepad with a leatherette cover. At $10 it’s still expensive but much easier to justify.

The best prices I have seen for LIFE products in the US are at:

Nanami Paper

I have no affiliation and no purchase experience with this store but their prices seem to be more in line with Japanese retail.

Midori World Meister’s Note Vol. 3 “Grain” Memo Book Review

April 23, 2014 by Blake

World Meister’s Note is a collection from Midori that involves fusion of Japanese craft with other countries craft. I have previously reviewed Vol. 1 “Dainel” and I liked it quite a bit.

I skipped Vol. 2 for the time being as it has been hard to locate one from a US seller. Hopefully when I go to Japan later this week I will be able to pick one up.

Vol. 3 is called Grain and “employs recycled leather meticulously manufactured by workshops in Valencia, Spain.” The memo book measures 5″ x 3″ x .5″ not including the spiral which adds a quarter inch in length and depth.

The memo book features 50 sheets (100 pages) white lined MD paper and 50 sheets of cream blank MD paper. There is also a double elastic band that keeps the book shut.

It’s a beautiful little book. The black leather looks great with the brown elastic and the copper colored double spirals.

The black recycled leather cover is stiff like a regular plastic memo book color but it has a nice leather grain and smell.

As I have mentioned in previous posts Midori’s MD paper is one of my favorites. It holds fountain pen ink very well. The lined pages have a brown dotted rule were every fifth line is solid. Also the front of each sheet of lined paper has the “MIDORI” printed at the bottom.

I had to abuse the paper to make it bleed. Almost no ghosting.

More apparent ghosting on the cream colored paper but no bleed even with abuse.

The Grain memo book is too large and bulky for my pants pocket. It will fit but it’s not comfortable. 100 sheets of paper make the memo book quite fat and inflexible.

$7.75 is high for a little memo book but the leather cover and 100 sheets of MD make the entry price worth while. The Grain is a great looking, beautifully made memo book. If it was a bit less bulky it would be my new memo book of choice but for now I am sticking with the Maruman Mnemosyne memo book (N193).

Here is a great review of the Midori “Grain” Memo Book:

(I have no affiliation with the site linked below)

Vertical Paper – Midori World Meister Vol. 3 Grain Memo Notepad — Review

Baron Fig The Confidant Notebook Review

March 30, 2014 by Blake

Baron Fig started as a Kickstarter project and raised almost $170k of crowd funding. Clearly people liked this notebook so I wanted to see what it is all about. Currently Baron Fig only makes one notebook, The Confidant, which comes with 192 pages of blank, ruled or dot grip paper. The book is a bit smaller than an A5 size at 5.4″ x 7″.

The notebook comes very nicely packaged in its own maroon colored box and while I like the packaging I don’t want to see that on a $16 notebook…it actually annoys me…why does a hard covered notebook need an expensive box? Can I pay $10 and skip the box?

Okay so I dislike the packaging but what about the notebook?

The plain, unbranded grey cover and the yellow page marker go great together. The inside of the notebook contains a thick acid free paper that handles fountain pen ink quite well and as advertized the book does lay flat, which was nice to see.

Unfortunately the build quality leaves much to be desired.

The first thing I noticed was the page marker is unfinished at the bottom so it comes new out of the box frayed. That seems a bit sloppy. The spine looks all bumpy, like the fabric wasn’t glued on with much care.

With some use I noticed that the cover would no longer close all the way on its own weight. This isn’t a huge deal but it’s worth pointing out.

The book’s binding has a decent number of signatures which allows the book to lay flat but on the inside the stitching in each signature is poor.

There are only 5 loose stitches and they are off center; from the top of the page to the first stitch is .75″ and from the bottom of the page to the last stitch is 1.25″. If you are like me and like to tear pages out of your notebook, you are going to have a hard time. Every page I have tried to pull rips horribly because of the crap stitching.

For reference this is what stitching on a high quality Life notebook looks like:

Life Notebook Stitching — The stitching is tight and goes all the way to the end of the page.

The Baron Fig has some really good things going for it but the build quality makes it feel like a first attempt, and when you consider the $16 price tag it’s definitely a no-go.

Please note: This product was provided to me at no charge by Baron Fig for review purposes.

Field Notes Shelterwood Edition Review

March 23, 2014 by Blake

The Field Notes Shelterwood Edition has the most unique cover I have seen so far. It features a cherry wood veneer on a brown kraft paper and it looks awesome. The feel of the cover was initially off putting, it felt like badly sanded wood. As I used the notebook more it felt less and less rough. I did not see quite the variation in color and grain as Field Notes shows on their website but each of the covers is noticeably different.

The cover is surprisingly strong, I have used it in my back pocket for a few days now and I have not seen any splintering.

I suspect as these covers get older, they will become more brittle.

The paper is the same lined paper as you got in the America the Beautiful Edition, which is by far the most fountain pen friendly Field Notes paper I have come across.

This is definitely one of the best limited edition Field Notes I have seen. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next!

Love the gold staples. — Love the gold staples

Scout Books Black Composition Notebook Review

February 25, 2014 by Blake

The Scout Books Black Composition notebook is a pocket sized journal that is made in Portland, Oregon and measures 3.5″x 5″ (half an inch shorter than Field Notes). Each Composition notebook contains 32 6mm ruled pages. The paper is recycled and is noticeably thicker than the standard Field Notes paper. In using the Scout Books side by side with a Field Notes I noticed that Field Notes lays much flatter than the Scout Books notebook.

The cover features a simple black design that looks like a composition notebook (imagine that). I like that there is no branding on the front cover. The design is quite good but I have to say that I prefer the look of Field Notes.

Although the paper is rather thick, it did not handle fountain pen ink all that well. There is some bleeding and feathering much like you get with a standard Field Notes.

The Scout Books Black Composition notebook sells in packs of 3 for $10. While I do like these little notebooks, I prefer Field Notes as you get get similar performance, more pages, and a better design for the same price.

Please note: This product was provided to me at no charge by Scout Books for review purposes.

Here are some great reviews of Scout Books:

(I have no affiliation with the sites linked below)

The Pencil Revolution – Review of Scout Books Composition Book (lined)

The Well-Appointed Desk – Scout Books

Semikolon Il Creativo Medium Notebook Review

October 14, 2014February 3, 2014 by Blake

Want a notebook with fine stationery quality ribbed paper? The Semikolon Il Creativo may be just what you are looking for.

Let’s start with the stats:

152 sheets (304 pages) of cream colored, ribbed, lined, and perforated.
141 organizational stickers
soft stain resistant vinyl cover
two page makers
5.5″ x 7.48″ (also comes in small and large sizes)

The looks of the Il Creativo are bold; you are going to either love it or hate it. While the cover comes in multiple colors the spines are all rainbow colored. I weirdly, love it. I like that the main cover color (yellow in this case) continues into the rainbow spine and around to the back cover. There is some light branding on the cover; both the front and back covers read “Semikolon” with the little semicolon logo. The spine has a large semicolon logo.

The vinyl cover is soft and has a slight texture to it that feels nice to the touch. The inside of the cover continues the rainbow and yellow design of the outside. The first few pages feature the days of the year in two formats (see below). Also, I should mention that when I initially opened up the notebook there was a strong smell of glue. The smell did seem to go away quickly as I used the notebook.

The lined pages have an unfortunately wide rule that measure 3/8″ or 9.5mm. The lines are also darker than I would like. The half way point is marked with the Semikolon logo that I found to be distracting. Each of the lined pages feature a perpetual calendar at the bottom of the page (to be honest I am not entirely sure how to use it properly). The pages are nicely perforated and detach easily.

So how does the paper perform? In a word, beautifully! My widest, juiciest nibs behaved well, no bleeding, no feathering and very little ghosting. The paper is a pleasure to write on as it gives wonderful feedback without being rough. As I said earlier, it is like fine stationery paper.

Even though I may not be in love with the formatting of the Il Creativo I do love the paper and look forward to filling it up. I will be testing out Semikolon’s Mucho notebook (which uses the same paper later as the Il Creativo) this month.

Please note: this product was provided to me at no charge by Semikolon for review purposes.

Word Notebooks Blue Floral Review

January 25, 2014 by Blake

Word. Notebooks are quite unique in that they are specifically designed for making lists. The notebooks are pocket sized at 3.5″ x 5.5″ and contain 48 pages of acid free paper.

The white flowers and skulls against the blue background makes for an excellent cover design.

On the left margin at the beginning of each line you have a circle within another circle designed to be used with Word. Notebooks’ standardized symbol system (see the use guide below).

The paper is thicker than you find in a standard Field Notes notebook but it seems to feather and bleed when using fountain pen ink. This paper seems work best with ballpoints and fine point gel pens.

I have been using the Word. bullet point system for a few weeks now and I have to say that I do like it quite a bit. If Word. Notebooks were to improve their paper I believe I would use them for my daily to-do lists but for now I have been using them to keep track of the reviews I need to complete for THE UNROYAL WARRANT.

Word. Notebooks are sold in packs of three for $9.99 and if you are not a fountain pen user, I highly recommend these notebooks; the design inside and out is fantastic.

Please note: this product was provided to me at no charge by Word. Notebooks for review purposes.

Here are some great reviews of the Word. Notebooks:

(I have no affiliation to the sites linked below)

Pencil Revolution – Review of Word. Notesbooks.

Ed Jelley – Word. Notebooks Tan Camo – Review

Gourmet Pens – Review: Word Lined Notebooks – Swedish Camo

Pen Paper Ink Letter – Word. Notebooks Review

The Pen Addict – Word. Notebooks Review

Word Notebooks 2014 Standard Memorandum Review

January 25, 2014January 5, 2014 by Blake

While I know we are already in 2014, it is not too late to buy a 2014 diary. The Standard Memorandum Notebook produced by Word. Notebooks is a bit of a curiosity. Designed by illustrator, Jon Contino, to resemble pocket journals form the early 1900’s, The Standard Memorandum Notebook only gives you a few lines per day. When I received the notebook in the mail I was surprised by how tiny it is; at 2.35″ wide x 5.25″ long it will easily fit into your pocket.

The black cover features gold lettering with an interesting Jon Contino drawn script that reads “THE STANDARD MEMORANDUM 2014”. The rest of the notebook features Columbia Titling typeface.

The notebook contains 64 pages and is bound with two staples. This notebook does not lie flat nor does it close well. Because the pages are skinny there is not enough weight to close the book so it stays open at a 45 degree angle in the middle of the book. Each page contains 7 days, such that you get 14 days on a 2 page spread.

Up front you get a place for your personal details ( can't say I have seen a diary with a place for sizing and transportation info before). — Up front you get a place for your personal details (can’t say I have seen a diary with a place for sizing and transportation info before).

Also up front is an index with a cell for each day of the year so that you can mark important events.

The paper is smooth but not fountain pen friendly. I found a good amount of bleed and feathering with fountain pen ink.

I love seeing all of the manufacturing details listed. Glad that this is becoming a more common practice.

I have been using the notebook for a week now and at the end of each day I write down the day’s highlights. Trying to get your whole day into 3 or 4 lines is surprising fun; it forces you to cut out the unimportant details. While I still use a regular full size journal, I am finding that the The Standard Memorandum is easier to keep up with every day and in that sense it’s pretty valuable.

The Standard Memorandum Notebook can be purchased for $11.00 here.

You can also purchase a leather cover for $45 which can be monogrammed.

Please note: this product was provided to me at no charge by Word. Notebooks for review purposes.

Here are some great reviews of the The Standard Memorandum Notebook:

(I have no affiliation to the sites linked below)

Ink on Hand – Word Notebooks 2014 Standard Memorandum

Pen Paper Ink Letter – 2014 Standard Memorandum by Word. Notebooks

Inktronics – The Standard Memorandum. Does It Compare to the Real Thing?