Several years ago, while browsing on eBay, I came across a series of very unusual Moleskine notebooks that I’d never seen: Moleskine Zoom. I purchased two batches of these over the last few years, both times from international sellers where shipping was fairly expensive. (I “solved” that problem by making offers for combined bulk purchases, thus making the per-notebook shipping cost a little more reasonable!)

How could I not fall in love with these:

The covers are a smooth material printed with zoomed in photographs of landscapes around the world. Seen all together, they have a lovely color palette, with elastic closures that match the hues of each notebook.

So what’s the story behind the Moleskine Zoom notebook series? There is not much information online about them, except for a 2007 post on Moleskinerie:

Apparently there’s a series of Moleskine called “Zoom”.

:::calling Milan:::

[Link to Moleskiner.cn, which is no longer active]

Update 4.18.07:

Our friend Silvia Trenta at Moleskine.com in Milan says this product was a special series produced in 2001.

The packaging is all in Italian, and doesn’t offer much info: “New albums and notebooks for photographs and collages, notes and drawings covered by the surface of the planet. Zoomed images of Antarctica, Australia, Cameroon, Iran, Morocco, and Polynesia.” There is an extra info sheet inside printed with color images on the back– these same sheets were cut up and glued onto on the translucent belly bands, as you can see when you look at the back.

Modo e Modo appear to have produced pocket size Moleskine Zoom notebooks in ruled, squared, plain and sketchbook versions, as well as larger photo albums with white or black heavy paper and pockets for negatives. I’ve never seen the photo albums listed on eBay or anywhere else.

I love the colors and patterns. I love the evocation of some of the earth’s more striking features. I love the global wanderlust the images inspire. These notebooks kind of encapsulate everything that was cool about Moleskine’s mythology back then, whether it was marketing hype or not. To me, this is the kind of limited edition Moleskine should be doing, not goofy collaborations with Coca Cola or Pokemon.

What I also love about Moleskines of that era is the way they were constructed. Hardly any cover overhang. Precisely folded corners. Everything nice and square. Good quality control. Other than the covers, coordinating elastic bands and white ribbon markers, these notebooks are exactly the same as other Moleskines except for one small detail: the expanding back pockets seem to have paper sides rather than the contrasting fabric sides other Moleskines have.

Like all other Moleskines, these don’t have the best paper– it is somewhat better than what they seem to be using now in the late 2010s, and as always, it’s okay with fine gel ink pens, but many fountain pens and other wet pens bleed through in spots. Show through is about average. I generally use pens that don’t bleed, so the paper is something I’ve always been willing to accept in exchange for the precise construction of these early Moleskines, but the more I’ve come to enjoy fountain pens, the more it makes me sad.

The first set of Moleskine Zoom notebooks I bought were all sketchbooks. I tucked them away and couldn’t bring myself to use one. Now that I also have more than a full set of squared notebooks, and almost a full set of plain notebooks, I’ll probably use a few for daily carry sometime soon. The rest will be saved for some future date, when I’ve run out of all the other Moleskines in my collection that seem less special.

There are still a some of these notebooks for sale on eBay as of this writing– search “Moleskine Zoom” and you’ll find listings from an Australian seller called Toysorigin, and an Italian seller called Mecspecthreepwood. Try just viewing those sellers’ listings even if the title search doesn’t work. Happy hunting!