Words on the Goods

We here at Words on the Goods and our mother site Words on the Word are big fans of ColsenKeane’s products.

They sent us a Scotch Grunge Moleskine Notebook Cover to review, which we write about here. This is by far the beefiest notebook cover I’ve set eyes and hands on. To say the leather is thick is an understatement!

In fact, my (Abram’s) father has really put the notebook through its paces and written about it, so we can officially say this blog has three contributors now. (Brian was the second.)

 

 

Some Highlights

• beefy, rich-toned leather
• the shade of brown is great—very pleasing
• the leather is of exceptionally high quality… smells like tanned leather should!
• the inserts are of high quality and made by Moleskine. That means lots of options for getting refills, as Moleskine offers the 5″ x 8.25″ size in a variety of formats
• the notebook cover’s space for two inserts allows options for different kinds of journaling… I’m using one of the inserts for actual journaling, the other to gather quotations that strike me in my reading

More Thoughts

The main drawback has been the thickness of the leather—though the same size notebook cover is available in various kinds of leather, if you want something less meaty.

The generous thickness, while making the cover seem sturdy, comes out of the gate a little stiff. It softens with use, and you can bend it a bit to loosen it up. It certainly opens and closes fine at the “hinge” area. But it’s definitely more flexible than a hardcover board would be. And this “con” may be personal preference only, and may not represent what a lot of people would feel.

Second, the stretchy string used to keep the journal closed developed a thin spot where the elastic under the woven covering seems to have gotten broken. The whole thing holds together, but there is a little non-elastic thin spot on the string of a half-inch or so.

 

 

ColsenKeane offers replacements online, and in this case was quick and gracious to send replacements, as the string seemed to wear out early.

Bottom Line… and Photos!

Bottom line: if you want thick leather, the Medium Journal Cover in Scotch Grunge is for you. (It’s “No. 510” on the site; find it here.) You can customize your order, too: adding initials to the notebook, notebook inserts, pockets, and even additional/replacement string (I’d recommend this).

As with the other ColsenKeane products we’ve reviewed, these come packaged and wrapped in a way that shows how much the company cares about its products and presentation. It feels like Christmas opening up anything from ColsenKeane.

The photos on their product page are awesome. Here are ours.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks again to ColsenKeane for the product sample so we could review it. Find the notebook cover here.