Moleskine has always been rather cagey about revealing the actual weight of their paper, unlike rival notebook makers such as Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Fabriano and many others who specify their paper weight in GSM (grams per square meter). GSM isn’t the only factor in how a paper performs, but it’s a good indicator, as thicker paper will usually have less show-through and bleed-through.

A while back, I linked to this blog post, which does a very detailed analysis to arrive at an estimated measurement of Moleskine’s paper weight. The author Steve DeLong just updated it to let everyone know that he’s been proven right! Moleskine released the information below about their various paper types (this actually dates back to February 2014, but I guess we didn’t notice at the time!):

Paper and item guide.

70 g/m² – 47 lb paper	The classic, ivory-coloured Moleskine notebook paper, suitable for dry media, pencils, ballpoint pens. Items: Music Notebook
100 g/m² – 68 lb paper	A heavier version of the notebook paper. Appropriate for fountain pens and dry media, pencils, charcoal, pastels. Items: A3 Plain Book
120 g/m² – 81 lb sketch-grade paper	Smooth, ivory-coloured paper. Ideal for sketching and drawing with pencils, charcoal, fountain pens, markers. Items: Sketch Album
165 g/m² – 111 lb sketch-grade paper	Pigmented directly in the pulp itself, this paper guarantees colour stability and resistance to eraser and marker use. It supports all dry media, pencils, pastels, charcoal, fountain pens and markers. Items: Sketchbook, Japanese Album, Storyboard Notebook
200 g/m² – 135 lb watercolour paper	Cold-pressed watercolour paper with cotton for better water absorption on both sides of the page. Created exclusively for Moleskine, it is suitable for watercolour washes and supports large quantities of water. Items: Watercolour Album
200 g/m² – 135 lb black paper	This multimedia paper makes the perfect base for photos, scrapbooking and collages, as well as drawings with bright-coloured pencils, pastels, gel pens and Moleskine fluorescent and metallic inks. Items: Black Page Album, Black Page Japanese Album

The surprises here for me were that there is an in-between 100GSM weight used in the A3 plain notebooks, though it makes sense that the very thin standard paper might not hold up well at that size. I was not too surprised to see that the softcover Sketch Album has lighter weight paper than the regular hardcover Sketchbook, Japanese Album and Storyboard notebooks– I bought a Sketch Album a while ago and have had it in my queue to review, and my first impression of it was that the paper seemed lighter. It will be interesting to do some actual tests now knowing that it really is a different weight.

Thanks to Steve for the heads-up about Moleskine’s press release!