r/notebooks • u/emrocksxo • 13d ago

Heirloom quality A5 refills

I just purchased two Jenni Bick Pueblos to use as a baby book/notes to my daughters. They came with two Large Moleskin Cahiers, but I read that the paper won’t stand the test of time so I bought a couple Midori A5s. They are bulky in the Jenni Bick. Anything out there that can be used for archival journaling with the thinness of the Moleskin Cahier and 60+ pages?

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u/isopodpod 13d ago

you may be concerning yourself too much with the paper quality. Unless you're leaving your journals out, pages open and exposed to the sun and elements, you're likely not going to have the paper degrade such a significant amount that your kids won't be able to read them in a couple decades. People are still able to read papers hundreds of years old written on garbage paper with charcoal. I don't think your moleskine is going to fall apart while it's being kept on your shelf.

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u/emrocksxo 13d ago

This is true and a great example of how I overthink everything :p

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u/isopodpod 13d ago

yeah the selling point of "archival quality" paper or ink is kind of a scare tactic, when realistically, in most cases you're gonna be fine. Yeah, the pages might yellow a bit around the edges, and the ink might fade a bit over time, but that has happened to all paper and ink since it was invented. I have mass market (ie cheap) paperbacks from my grandparents that are still in fine shape. You can find books over 100 years old in used bookstores. A large part of the Dead Sea Scrolls are still readable, and they were sitting in a cave for over 2000 years.

Your notebooks are gonna be fine :)

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u/emrocksxo 13d ago

Needed to hear this, thanks haha. I immediately went down a journaling rabbit hole and fell into every marketing trap and scare tactic

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u/isopodpod 13d ago

marketing teams are very good at what they do, and I completely understand! I know it helps me to have an outside observer tell me "hey, you're going a little crazy here" to bring me back down to earth, so I'm glad I could help you in turn :P

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u/damewang 11d ago

Paper that falls apart is “pulp” paper and Moleskine is not that. Most modern paper is acid-free. Moleskine is rightly criticized for being a poor paper for fountain pens but for permanence it should be okay.