A short while ago, one of the notebooks I was given to review struck a
chord on a number of levels, this was the Silvine Pocket notebook, impressing
me with the combination of superb paper, excellent binding, and reasonable
price point.
It turns out that the Pocket is not the only Silvine notebook out
there, there’s a whole family, and they come in a range to suit anyone.
As always, in advance, I did not pay for these notebooks, they were
given as a sample in return for an honest review.
The thing about Silvine notebooks, whichever size they come in, is that
the paper is excellent, it’s just absorbent enough to bite, but it doesn’t
drink the pen, and as those who know me will attest, paper than can hold the
ink without having the whole cartridge is very important to me. To demonstrate this, I had friends over the
weekend, and as the lady in question needed a new fountain pen, I decided to
carry out the consultation on one of the notebooks given.
This is the Project Notebook
Light blue five millimetre squares on one side and blank on the other
to allow a combination of illustrations, diagrams, and writing (in whichever
orientation you prefer), I let the lady loose, and as she is an enthusiastic
bunny (Sorry H, but you are), she proceeded to try all the pens and many of the colours.
With the following results
And the page after
Bleedthrough, even when using the Kanji brushes, is minimal, and if you’re
looking at the page rather than photographing it under high light, it’s almost non-existent.
This for me is at the core of the Silvine appeal, the paper is almost
without equal, thicker and more resilient than Tomoe whilst retaining the
tactile quality that allows writing using any width nib with equal efficiency.
That said, the notebooks I use tend to come in two different sizes,
huge, and tiny, and Silvine do a number of others.
This is the Exercise book, harking back to the days of school (At least
when I was a kid) when most books came with a margin built in, or had one drawn
in biro to split the page up. A5 in size, same quality paper, perforated down
the edge and coming with a backing board to let you write on any surface just
in case you don’t have an old style desk handy.
Not to be confused with the lower quality books that we got to use at
school, just in case anyone remembers the cheap and cheerful silvines we had to
use back then.
This is the Notebook, 190x125 mm, it’s just a little smaller than a
moleskine notebook, same perforations in the side and while blank (not a bonus
for me), it’s a good size to carry around.
The Pocket I’ve already gone into on another review, but it remains
part of my every day carry, just for jotting things down and storing them in
the Fauxdori for use later.
All of these are available from www.silvineoriginals.co.uk, they
are more expensive than most notebooks, the Pocket is £6.50 for 3, the Memo is
£4.50, the Note is £6, the Exercise £7, and the Project £14. However, other notebooks don’t have the level
of quality that these books do, and getting fountain pen quality paper in a
regular notebook is a rare enough occurrence, getting it in the larger sizes is
all but impossible. The only one of the
notebooks that I’d hesitate in buying again would be the Project, and that’s because
for the same price, I could get a new Leuchtturm, and I have a thing for
hardbound notebooks.
The last thing is the Story book, which isn't actually a notebook to write in, but a written history of the notebooks, where they came from and where they're going.
Fascinating to read through, but ultimately not a notebook, however, I am cheered by the notion that even with so long out of circulation, they're back and going strong.