Pebble's Sakura Sumiko Ltd. Ed.

Scrib has already penned his views on this, a couple of weeks ago (you can read his thoughts here), as has Stu (his piece is here) but I'm now going to give my two penn'orth!

First up, the specs:

It's a dot grid notebook, with 120 sides of the very thin Tomoe River paper - the 52gsm version. It's a true A5 size, with a limited edition, gold debossed 350 gsm card cover. There are lots of really nice touches, such as the sewn-binding (making it lie flat with no persuasion), numbered pages, a covered spine (so the stitching doesn't show), rounded corners, gold edges to the pages, glorious decoration on the cover... but most of you won't be interested in that! Most of that detail is for nerds like me!

What's it like? When you write in it, how does it feel?

Well, if you're a fountain pen user, 52 gsm Tomoe River can be a bit of a Marmite paper, to be honest! Ink takes a while to dry on it, so if you're one of those lefties who can't manage to write without dragging your hand all over what you've just written, this is probably a big no-no. (Incidentally, I've never understood why lefties do that... I originally wrote left-handed, switched to right-handed when I went to school (don't ask), but then had to write left-handed for over two years when I had crippling RSI in my right wrist. At no point have I ever held the pen in such a way that my hand has gone over the written bit... but I digress...)

If you want to close the book quickly after penning something, this paper with a fountain pen may also not work well (though such a thing as blotting paper exists, guys).

If you're not a huge fan of ghosting, this paper may not be one for you, either...

But...

If you love the crinkle of thin paper that's been written on (and I do!) - like airmail paper can, this is the notebook for you. If you like inks with sheen to them (and I do!), this is the paper for you. If you adore the fact that only 250 of them will ever be made, this is for you.

But, here are my pen tests to share with you. Bear in mind, these are the 'big guns' and almost every paper has bleed-through and/or ghosting with them!

I guess it depends on what you like... if you want paper that allows a decent sheen but doesn't ghost so much (but doesn't crinkle) then head for the Clairefontaine section. But I think this is a glorious notebook that will hold beautiful inks well and have that amazing rustling sound after it's been written in.

Available here (unless Stu has bought them all by now!) but hurry... when I spoke to Stu at the weekend, there were only ~20 left in stock!