I'm looking at possibly investing in moleskine notebooks for my board of directors. They're certainly more expensive that regular notebooks, but the reviews I'm seeing are pretty positive.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing many specifics about WHY they're so good. Just that people say things like "you'll get my moleskine only from my cold dead hands" and how amazing they are.

Curious if anyone here has used one and what the big deal is.

this would probably belong in tech area :X




Never heard of em myself though

Nope, not really much technical about them.

http://www.moleskine.com/eng/default.htm

It looks to me like it's just ridiculous hype. Famous artists and writers have sworn by them in the past so they use that as their main selling point.

It's leather-bound paper. If it's not obvious already, the brand of notebook you use isn't going to make you any better than you are. It's like saying if you strap in to a formula 1 racecar you will be able to drive like Mario Andretti.

But hey, if it makes your directors think they are Hemingway because they have the same kind of notebook he used, whatever.

The pages are acid-free. Anything written in them is likely survive longer than that written in a regular school notebook. That may not be an advantage. Otherwise, I personally like the size(s)/orientations available and the cover is sturdy and sophisticated looking.

I think another reason they're attractive is this...you'll carry them and use them whereas you might not with a regular notebook.

I write, and I've noticed that when I write down immediately an idea, or record a humorous incident the quality is much better than if I do it later. It's fresh in memory. When I've written up something days or weeks later sometimes, it's just not nearly as good.

I've also done sketchwork (though not in a very long time) and having quality paper on which to make sketches is really ideal. The only thing there is, now people have pretty decent quality cameras with them at all times (via cellphones if nothing else). So that's better except when you cannot take a photo. I used to sketch people on the bus when I was damned to public transportation after wrecking my car in high school. You can sketch someone a hell of a lot easier on a bus than you could take a picture...though I'm sure some people are good at taking cell phone pics without being noticed...I'm probably about as subtle as Elmer Fudd.

All that being said, I don't have a moleskine notebook. I have bought similar and much cheaper ones though and used them...I just lose shit too often to spend that much on it. And I suspect that Shareef nailed down the reason A LOT of people buy them; brandwhoring.

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Looks like you can get them on Amazon.com and they aren't *that* expensive. 10$-15$ isn't very expensive at all if its a quality notebook. Could just be a cheap ripoff though.

Oh, I thought they were going to be close to $100. Though I think I spend about $5 for my spiral notebooks.

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