(Susan M. Pigott is a fountain pen collector, pen and paperholic, photographer, and professor. You can find more from Susan on her blog Scribalishess.)
The Blackwing 602 Summit Notebook is a 7.5 x 10 inch notebook with 160 pages. The cover is gray with a soft, velvety feel to it and it’s flexible. The only branding is on the back cover where “Blackwing” is inscribed.
The inner cover is printed with a place for one’s name, notes, start and completion date, and contact information.
The first page is a “Notebook Log” with columns for date, content, and page numbers. Unfortunately, the notebook itself is not paginated, so you will have to write the page numbers in yourself.
The book lays flat when open thanks to the sewn binding. There’s a pink ribbon bookmark that complements the gray cover well.
The ivory paper is 100 GSM with gray lines spaced 6mm apart. There are 36 lines per page.
Blackwing notebooks are, of course, meant to be used with Blackwing pencils. Unsurprisingly, the paper and pencil combination works perfectly.
But, I wanted to test my notebook with fountain pens and other writing instruments, just to see how it held up. The paper is smooth and thick and worked well with all the fountain pens I tried. I noticed a little show through and a tiny bit of bleed through with my wettest inks, but it was so minute, it didn’t show up in photographs.
With other writing instruments, the paper works equally well. The only pen that bled through was (as usual) the Sharpie. Highlighter did not bleed through, though I should have waited a bit longer to let the ink from my Pilot G2 dry (the smudging is my fault).
The Blackwing Summit is a no-frills notebook. It doesn’t have a pen loop or cover pockets or page numbers or any other bells and whistles. That suits me just fine. It feels nice in the hand, the paper is good quality, and the notebook should stand up well to abuse. I like the size because it’s portable yet large enough to write lengthy passages. It’s become my new Pen Addict review rough-draft notebook.
You can purchase this notebook from Vanness Pens for $21.95. It comes in blank, lined, and dot-grid versions.
(This notebook was purchased at a discount from Vanness Pens.)
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