Piccadilly Ruled Notebook

[dannzeman]

I bought two of the large Piccadilly notebooks from Walden Books while looking for some new Rhodia pads. One was plain paper, the other college ruled (which is 1/4″ spacing according to Piccadilly’s website). The paper in both notebooks are off white colored, which makes it easy on the eyes. The quality of paper is good with the ruled notebook constructed of 100GSM acid-free paper and the plain notebook made of 80GSM acid-free paper.

If you like using Moleskine notebooks you’ll probably really like what Piccadilly has to offer. The Piccadilly is a hard cover notebook, has an expandable pocket in the back, a bookmark ribbon, and an elastic closure. Throw in some rounded corners, a cheap price tag (I paid $5.99 for each of mine) and you’ve got yourself a solid notebook for less than half the price of a Moleskine.

There are some downsides to this notebook that may keep some people from buying it. A little annoyance that is immediately noticable is the weak elasticity of the closure. It has just enough tension to keep the book closed. It does its job just fine, it just feels weak. That certainly wouldn’t keep me from buying it again. What will keep me from buying another one is the way ink feathers on this paper. Depending on what ink you use this notebook may be unusable.

Below you’ll see an example of the Piccadilly compared to a Rhodia pad. The Rhodia pad is the second line of writing on the bright white paper. Some inks behave themselves better than others with Noodlers performing the best in my experience.

Below is the full list of inks I experimented with. It is in the same format as above, the Piccadilly sample is first, then the Rhodia sample directly underneith. Click the image for a larger resolution file that is 50% the size of the original scan. The original scan is available for download, but please note it is about 30MB.

Piccadilly vs Rhodia, full resolution scan.

If you didn’t look at either of the scans I’ll do a quick summary of the worst feathering offenders and the most well behaved. Taking top honors for the worst feathing ink is a toss between Walt Disney Signature Black by Monteverde and Diamine Imperial Blue. Fighting for third place is a Levenger trio: Always Greener, Amethyst, and Skies of Blue.

I don’t think I can honestly say that there was a single ink that didn’t feather. But, the inks with the least amount of feathering were J. Herbin Violette Pensée, Noodlers’ Tiananmen, Levenger Raven Black, and Private Reserve Dakota Red.

For the price of this notebook I’m not making any complaints, even though it probably sounds like I am. I won’t buy another one, but I will use the two I have until they’re filled. I just won’t get to use all the inks in my collection. On Piccadilly’s website they state “Piccadilly Journals, Best value journals in the world”. I don’t disagree.

[gillyohan]

Thanks for the review, especially with all the cutting and pasting so that we can see the colors on different paper side by side.

I think that the Piccadilly journal prices are great, as well as their form factor and design (hard covers, elastic strap), but their paper quality is lacking. For any pencil or ball pen user, they are probably the best option, but for FPs, they are not very nice. I had to quit my Piccadilly journal before I even finished it due to all the feathering. I got the least amount of feathering with Lamy BB (iron gall) from my own limited ink selection. My personal journal journey has been (only for small journals) Moleskine (feathers, pricey), Piccadilly (feathers, cheap), Rhodia webbie (awesome, Moleskine-pricey), tried Leuchtturm1917 (pretty awesome, between Piccadilly and Moleskine prices).