These are just gorgeous! This set of eight books is a treasure. The books are the journals of a kasuri weaver/dyer from Omi, an area of Japan (present-day Shiga Prefecture) which produced some of Japan’s finest hemp and ramie kasuri textiles, known as Omi jofu. The books date from 1859 through the beginning of last … Continue reading 19th Century Notebooks From a Japanese Dyeworks
As for the other kind of Black Friday, if you can’t handle visiting stores today, do your holiday shopping online using these links and a small commission from your purchases will help support this site: Notebook Stories Store — my collection of notebooks and other favorites available via Amazon Amazon — everything else at Amazon … Continue reading BLACK FRIDAY
Here’s another neat-o EBay purchase, a promotional notepad from a typewriter company! Actually, I guess they must have started out as a typewriter company but expanded into general office supplies, given the motto on the cover “Everything for the Office.” Inside it’s pretty simple: just plain perforated pages. There aren’t many pages left in the … Continue reading EBay Find: Scottsbluff Typewriter Company Notepad from 1949
I recently noticed this story about Siegfried Sassoon’s notebooks being archived at Cambridge University. Sassoon was a poet who refused to return to fight after being wounded in World War I. (Read Pat Barker’s novel Regeneration for an interesting perspective on his story.) The archive contains, among other things “Sassoon’s journals [and]Â pocket notebooks compiled … Continue reading Siegfried Sassoon’s Notebooks
There was an auction last week for all kinds of interesting stuff including a “Large Lot of Diaries, Notebooks & Memo Pads.” I wonder who bought them! Antiques and the Arts Auction Listing — Rare Books, Paper & Ephemera Auction Olde Tyme Stuffe, Inc. 54 Suffolk Street Worcester MA 01604 Thursday, October 22, 2009 at … Continue reading I Wish I Could Have Gone…
Here’s another neat little item purchased on EBay: This is a sub-category of notebooks that I could happily collect: small promotional diaries given out to the employees or business partners of various corporations. I have ones in my collection from Sandoz, GE, and the Harvard Coop, and this Westinghouse one was a great addition. First … Continue reading EBay Find: Westinghouse Diary, 1945
Every once in a while, I have a little burst of temporary insanity, and I decide to go browsing on EBay. Fortunately, some of these bursts lead to interesting and inexpensive notebook finds! Here’s a real gem: This notebook must have been given out as a promotional item by a company called Rice-Stix, based in … Continue reading EBay Find: Rice-Stix
Here’s a neat item that stretches the definition of “notebook,” or at least turns the clock back on it! Brass and Ivory Pocket Notebook It’s the 18th century version of the PDA. Beautifully crafted here in the US. Based on an original that Jefferson owned. These are made of sturdy brass stock with 4 old … Continue reading Retro and Expensive!
This is from the New York Times website: After news of President Lincoln’s assassination reached New York, in all arteries and capillaries of the city, shopkeepers designed makeshift shrines to the martyred president. An anonymous diarist walked for miles, drawing sketches of as many storefronts as he could (evidence suggests, but does not confirm, that … Continue reading Lincoln Memorial Diary
I snapped these photos during a recent trip to Philadelphia, where we stopped in to check out the Betsy Ross house. I have no idea what this notebook really has to do with Betsy Ross, but it was on display in a case there. It belonged to an artist/inventor named Charles Weisgerber. I have a … Continue reading A Notebook at the Betsy Ross House