Roterfaden A5 Notebook Review

My last review was for the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter, a super great notebook cover system that utilizes clips instead of elastic bands or pockets to keep notebooks in place. Naturally, Roterfaden has their own line of notebooks that are made to be used with this cover.

The Roterfaden notebooks are very minimalist. The cover is thin kraft cardstock. The brand is stamped onto the front, as well as an abbreviated infographic of notebook specs. The binding is sewn with red thread (in keeping with the brand name). There is no spine to cover the stitching--it's an open edge that facilitates in the notebooks' main feature: it lays perfectly flat on every page, with no training necessary. It does this very well. With no thick cover and no spine, it feels more like writing on a pad of paper than in a notebook. Frankly, it takes some getting used to.

While there are a lot of benefits to this notebook's structure, it does feel a little flimsy. The kraft cover is not much thicker than printer paper, and the loose binding feels like it's going to fall apart (it hasn't). It doesn't feel like a substantial book. Of course, it's not meant to be used alone. It's supposed to be inserted into the Taschenbegleiter with several of its siblings--and that becomes its actual cover. It does work well when used with the Taschenbegleiter, and I think it would work okay in an elastic system, too, but it would likely not work in a notebook cover where the insert cover needs to be slid into a pocket. It isn't quite sturdy enough to hang on by one cover.

Between the covers are 84 pages of very decent paper. It is a cream color, and this one has a dot grid pattern. Lined and blank are also sometimes available. The paper handles all inks very well with minimal showthrough, and no feathering or bleeding. My Sharpie has run dry, so it didn't bleed through as much as it would have--you can see in the picture that even the dry ink did get through a bit. A fully-loaded Sharpie would do what it normally does to paper: annihilation.

This is a good notebook that serves its purpose well. It works for what it was designed to do, though it doesn't work for me outside of its intended purpose. That is, I wouldn't use this notebook without a sturdy cover system like the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter. My biggest issue with this product is the price. $14.50 for an insert is...well, it's too much. It's good paper, and nicely bound, but it's also possible to find A5 notebooks that fit these specs for a third of that price. Buying these, especially in triplicate, as refills is not very cost effective. It's not a bad notebook, and if you like matching brands, it might be worth it, but it hasn't won me over.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Pebble Stationery Co. Traveler’s Regular Sized Tomoe River Notebook (Light Blue Vegan Leatherette): A Review

(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)

If you're a fan of the Traveler's Notebook, you know that it's a long, thin notebook (8.3 x 4.3 inches) that can be inserted into a leather cover using elastics. Many people love the Traveler's system, because you can keep several notebooks within one cover. See my review here.

Traveler's notebooks come in many different iterations with various kinds of paper. But if you want a higher quality Traveler's-size notebook with more features, you should take a look at Pebble Stationery Company's version.

The notebook comes with either a grey or light blue vegan leatherette cover. The soft, textured cover is engraved with Pebble Stationery's logo, and the cardboard is thick enough that you can use this notebook all by itself, without the need for an additional cover.

The corners are curved and the binding is sewn stitch bound, not stapled like regular Traveler's notebooks. The binding allows the notebook to lay flat. I love this feature, because I hate fighting with traditional Traveler's notebooks which absolutely will not stay open without clips or something weighing them down.

Upon opening Pebble's notebook, you'll find a title page made of card stock with spaces for your name, the date, and contact information. A similar piece of card stock is at the back of the notebook. Each acts as additional backing to support writing in the notebook.

Next is an index page printed with lines for recording entries. One index page is not enough for me. I'd like Pebble to add more index pages to the front.

The inner pages are printed with 5mm dot-grid in light grey. Each page is also numbered, which is a feature I appreciate. Yes, I can write my own page numbers at the top or bottom, but on more than one occasion I've gotten off on my enumeration and had to correct the numbers later.

The notebook has two thick ribbon markers, one grey and one blue. This is another special touch that sets the Pebble version apart.

The last page features a simple ink journal with the date, the pen you've inked, the ink name, and a box for the swatch. Again, I'd like more than one page for recording inks, and the print would be much easier to see if it were darker.

The journal contains 200 pages (front and back) of Tomoe River Paper (52gsm). Traditional Traveler's Notebooks contain Midori Diary Paper (80gsm) but have only 64 pages (front and back).

Traveler’s, left, and Pebble Notebook.

Ink always looks wonderful on Tomoe River Paper. I tested ten fountain pens with different inks and nib sizes. As you would expect with Tomoe paper, the inks show through but there's absolutely no bleed through.

Tomoe handles ink swabs beautifully with lots of sheen and shading. Show through was evident and slight bleed through occurred with wetter inks.

I made a drawing using Robert Oster Peppermint ink and a Sailor MF nib. The dot grid made it easy to section off the space, and the paper was smooth and pleasant to draw on.

I am thoroughly impressed with Pebble Stationery's take on the Traveler's Notebook. They have improved upon the traditional notebook in every way with the lay-flat binding, page numbers, book ribbons, and soft cover. My only suggestion is that more pages be set aside for indexing and ink journaling, but honestly, if you want more pages for these purposes you can just use the dot grid pages.

You can purchase the Pebble Stationery Co. Tomoe River Paper Traveler's Notebook for $17.99. Yes, this is more expensive than regular Traveler's notebooks ($5.50 for 64 pages), but you're getting more pages, Tomoe River paper, and lots of extra features.

(Pebble Stationery Co. provided this product to Pen Addict free of charge for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter Bestseller A5 Review

I've wanted to try a Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter ever since I heard Myke pronounce it on the Pen Addict Podcast. It may be the most fun-to-say product in the stationery world, but it's also a good product. If you have one, you get all the benefits of its use, and you get to say "Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter" every day.

The notebook cover is made from recycled leather. It's very soft and supple--not the thick, firm leather used by many notebook covers. It is stitched to several layers of thick recycled wool felt that line the inside of the cover. It's a much thicker lining than I had expected. On the one hand, it's taking up space I could be using for notebooks. But it does allow for a variety of useful pockets, and it creates a nice cushion, so those pockets can be used to house things like delicate electronics.

There are two card slots and a larger pocket on the inside front, and one large pocket on the back. It fits a small e-reader, as long as it isn't too bulky. There is a thick elastic strap that is attached to the back that wraps around the front to keep the book closed. There's also a very narrow pen loop. It does not fit most pens.

The most unique thing about the Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter is the notebook holding system. Instead of elastic bands, like many notebook system holders, this one has metal hooks. They are on hinges. To insert a notebook, you lift the hooks open, lay the notebook inside the cover, and bend the hooks down to hold it in place. They look a bit bulky and obstructive, but the metal is thin enough that it doesn't affect the writing surface of a page until you get to within a page or two of the hook. Once you're at that point, you can feel the hook through the pages and might have to adjust it to write smoothly until you're past that center page.

The metal hooks are lightweight, and their stems continue down the fabric spine of the notebook holder, lending structure to the soft leather. I also worried about the hinges being secure enough, but they hold things in place very well. I had a number of concerns about how well the clips would function, and the folx at Roterfaden seem to have anticipated them all and solved them ahead of time.

Right now I have it holding my school notebooks, which are a bit thicker than the Roterfaden notebooks (which I will review soon), but they fit nicely. Anything bulkier would likely not fit, in triplicate. "But, Sarah," you say, "I thought you prefer larger notebooks with tons of pages!" You're right, dear reader, I do. And I need notebook covers that are versatile enough to hold notebooks with 300-400 pages. The thing I like about these Roterfaden clips is that they don't have to go into individual notebooks. It actually fits a seven seas writer perfectly, if you put a clip inside each cover, and one in the middle. I've done the same with elastics in traveler's style notebooks, but it is a lot easier, and sturdier, with clips.

Overall, I would say this is one of my favorite notebook covers that I've used. There are other sizes and styles available, and you can even create a custom one on their website. The tricky part is, they are not inexpensive. This one sells for $155 on Jetpens. That takes the price of what I consider an expensive notebook cover and doubles it. There are things about it, though, that do explain some of the cost. These are proprietary, engineered parts, and there are a lot of patterned pieces to fit and assemble. Each of those clips has its own reinforced stitched channel along the spine, and every seam on the piece is precise and sturdy. Roterfaden also claim it will outlast me, which is a bold statement. I'm a bit skeptical on that one. I've worn out hardier notebook covers than this one in under three years. I'm going to find out, though, because I love it enough to keep using it. And I hope it does last forever, because at that price, it better.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!