Here’s an interesting question from a reader named Jeff:

I have a Roaring Spring notebook that was used as a journal by a family member, the contents are very precious to us but there’s some confusion as to the year(s) that the contents refer to!  (The writer only used Month/Day annotations, no year.)  Some family members believe it’s 1969 – 1970 but to me, it seems like more the 1980s…the Spring Logos seem different.    It’s a Roaring Spring 3 Subject, Model 10041

I agree that this looks like a notebook from the 1980s. The type style just looks more ’80s to me, but let’s try to back that up with context. I’ve featured various Roaring Spring notebooks on this site that can be tied to specific timeframes. Below are facsimiles of Roaring Spring notebooks the artist Lee Lozano used in the late 1960s with a different logo:

I have similar ones in my own collection that I used in the late 1970s and early 1980s:

Those examples are pocket size notebooks, and it’s possible that they didn’t update their logo across their entire product line at the same time. But in this post, a Roaring Spring notebook very much like Jeff’s seems to have been used in the early 1990s:

And here is another one of my own notebooks that was bought and used in the mid-1980s, showing the more contemporary-looking Spring logo on a pocket size notebook:

I think it is safe to say that Jeff is correct and his notebook dates from at least the early to mid-1980s, and definitely not the 1960s or 1970s. Readers, let us know if you have any other supporting evidence!