A reader recently wrote to me with the following question:
“I have been looking for a particular kind of notebook for quite some time. I see them more in movies than anything, and examples include JFK and the most recent Captain America movie (see pic below). It’s very similar to the one you have posted for Samuel Beckett. It’s got a brown card stock soft cover, ruled pages, and I believe stapled or stitched binding with a darker color tape (?) placed along the bound edge for reinforcement. They look like the sort of thing that would only cost a dollar or two. I’ve looked everywhere and cannot find them. Do you happen to know where I might find such a thing?”
I get so many questions about notebooks where I am completely stumped, but this time, I had some answers! I had a few of these notebooks in my own collection:
I bought these in the 1980s, in various stationery/office supply stores. Mine were made by Boorum & Pease, stock # 6086 1/2. Other brands may also have been available back in the day, perhaps in other parts of the country– Boorum and Pease was a NY/NJ-based company for many years, so these may have been more common in the Northeast. It’s rather quaint to think of regional stationery brands in today’s globalized world, isn’t it! But at least in the area where I grew up, these notebooks used to be pretty common and inexpensive. I loved the look of the reddish-brown cover with the black tape on the spine. The square corners could get beat up, but other than that, they were really handy little notebooks, and it’s a shame they seem to have gone out of fashion.
In searching for a contemporary version online, these were the closest things I could find: Oxford Side Opening 48 SHT Memo Book 5″ x 3″ – # 6080 1/2 and Roaring Springs Sewn Memo Book Item # 76096
I love these! I wrote about Boorum & Pease a couple months ago on my blog about some of their other notebooks.
I absolutely love the color of these notebooks. If it’s the style of this old book your reader is looking for, but not the function, my very favorite writing pad looks a LOT like this: The Ampad Gold Fibre Retro Writing Pad (that is an Amazon link, but not an affiliate one).
I have a bunch of these, and you can buy them at Staples if you don’t want to do so at Amazon. It has the same reddish pressboard covers, the black binding (though on here, it’s faux), and creamy manila pages. I love, love them. I have the full-sized 8.5 x 11 size and a 5 x 9 size.
Hope that’s useful!
I used the B&P books that were bound at the top ( #6097-1/2; 3 3/4 X 6 1/8) to fit into a flip-up cover I bought from a shop next-door to the mom and pop office supply store where the cover store’d sent me to buy my first box of the damn things.
They were perfect; simple, cheap and cool looking. Even the black binding that ran along the top or left side of the books was designed to be functional. If you look closely you’ll notice that the width of the strip is different on the front and the back. According to a guy who restores books, this minor detail allows for the book to be folded exactly in half without jutting out the back cover so as to keep folded over pages flat and make it more stable to write on while standing.
Things went along fine as long as I could get a box whenever I wanted which was until mom and pop decided to retire to Burmudie complicating things-finding them having to order in quantity- with no internet retail to speak of at that time. Ultimately B&P quit making them which drove me crazy- trying all kinds of crap.
I finally found perfect replacements. They are made by Blueline- a division of Rediform- in Canada. The A435 measures 3 5/8 X 6 and has 100 sheets. The A475 measures the same nad has 200 sheets. Both of these are hot glue bound on the top to black card stock covers that are slightly heavier than the old B&P version. The Blueline books have MEMO gold stamped on the front.
The binding is nice, pages tear out cleanly without having to worry about tearing below the stitching of the B&P binding to keep the other half of the page from falling out. Still beat the hell out of the saddle stitched versions on the market at the time. They don’t fold perfectly in half, but the heavier cover keeps it easy to write when the cover is folded over. They hold up great in a cover or in your pocket.
If you’re willing to look around, you should be able to find the A435 for between $2 and $3 and the A475- my preference- for between $4 and $5. There are some out there for ridiculous prices. A guy had a box of twenty 435’s on ebay for $160. I emailed him an offer even though there was no make an offer option listed and got them for $2.50 each. Never hurts to ask.
Blueline makes most of the old formats Boorum and Pease made with red, blue, green, or black covers.