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What’s a Moleskine worth?

June 16th, 2004 David Rosam Leave a comment Go to comments

When I go to a meeting these days, I have some nice stuff with me – a Palm Tungsten T, a Waterman fountain pen, and well broken-in leather briefcase…

And now I have that other poseur’s favourite, a Moleskine notebook – the bigger size, unlined, if you’re interested. Actually, it’s a really nice thing to have. Perhaps too nice to fill with meeting notes.

Anyway, I’ve just filled in my contact details on the first page, only to bump into a line that says:

As a reward $…………………………………..

So what’s it worth?

What’s yours worth to you?

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  1. Paul Makepeace
    June 30th, 2004 at 10:27 | #1
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    OK, what is it about Moleskine notebooks that people will pay *thirteen quid* for one? I like the way the cover fits flush with the pages, and the little bit of placeholding elastic is handy… Neither of those features seem to compel me to spend 3x expected retail for a notebook.

    So.. please enlighten me :-)

  2. David Rosam
    June 30th, 2004 at 22:21 | #2
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    Oh gawd. Caught by me own irony, I woz, mate…

    I’m someone who goes out of my way not to buy anything that has an overpriced logo or aspirational brand attached to it – a long story that probably will take us into some unsavoury backwaters of my psyche, but rationalised somewhere in the region of where the added value lies, if at all.

    I actually bought the Moleskine out of curiosity (£11.25 in a stationer’s in Brighton), and being a Bruce Chatwin nut (The Songlines is one of my favourite books) – as you’re probably aware, Chatwin is part of the mythology attached to these things.

    Sure enough, it doesn’t deliver value.

    I may not even buy another one, but it does have an artisan charm that’s nice to have around.

    I’ll try to use it sparingly and migrate as much of my note-taking as possible to my Palm.

  3. murky
    January 21st, 2005 at 18:19 | #3
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    To answer the question of ‘why pay more than the retail of a notebook’, for me, it depends on the job.

    For something like a journal, I want a certain ‘feel’, a quality about the book, a jotter from Rymans isn’t going to cut the mustard.

    For myself, I use ‘ciak’ journals.

    By the way, your trackback ping url is a relative url, which means that the trackback breaks – I had to manually add in the website address to the trackback.

    TrackBack URL for this entry:
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    Note, incomplete – will work from your server only!

    Take care,