Catching up on more reader emails received over the last few months…
From Jay: Do you have any idea if/where these are available? I miss them. Used to buy them at SupeRX, Osco, Hook’s Drugs, Ben Franklin…

I haven’t seen these in stores as much lately either… but I found a website that seems to sell this exact model at wholesale bulk prices if you’re willing to buy them by the dozen in assorted colors: Esco Import Toys.

***

From Shane: He sent me this in time for Halloween, but it may be old news now! A story about the discovery of a journal belonging to the author of Dracula:

Bram Stoker’s private journal sat unnoticed on his great-grandson’s bookshelf in England for at least a year.

Full of notes that would inform his legendary novel “Dracula” and other stories, the thin, unmarked book had probably been lugged down from the attic at some point, along with other things the Stoker family had passed down for more than a century and placed inconspicuously in Noel Dobbs’ Isle of Wight home.

 

Then, one day not long ago, a researcher working on a project about Stoker got in touch with Dobbs to ask if he might know anything about a journal his famous relative kept. Dobbs looked around and finally popped open this tiny book. It was signed “Abraham Stoker….”

Read more here.

***

David sent a link to some leather journals handmade in Maine:

Two sisters in Northern Maine cut the leather, stitch in the hand torn paper signatures, and create a distinctive heirloom piece. The robust top grain leather is three times thicker than standard garment leather, yet supple and well finished.  Built to last two lifetimes.  Yours, and whoever is fortunate enough to come by it next.

You can buy one here.

***

Gil, whose notebook I wrote about here, still hasn’t any luck finding the kind of covered spiral notebook he wants, and is wondering if anyone can recommend a printer/manufacturer who would take a custom order for something like this?

***

Paul sent some photos of another journal of historical interest:

The “Gibraltar Records” of financier Jay Cooke  [were] exhibited on the main floor of the William Oxley Thompson Library at The Ohio State University.  These records–kept in expensive bound and stamped legal ledgers–chronicle the day-to-day activities at Cooke’s summer home on Gibraltar Island in the harbor of Put-in-Bay, Ohio.

Thanks for your many contributions, everyone!