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Hello, everyone and I really hope, you’re all doing well today, so I want to talk about the moleskin history today. Show you some of my most keen journals. This is almost 20 years of Moleskins here, but purchased my first mosque in in 2003, and I want to show you some of the ones I’ve acquired over the years and talk about a little bit where the brand came from. You can all read that up in that little leaflet, flyer that comes with every moleskin you purchase, but I still thought I’d talk about a little bit and yeah my feelings, impressions about the brand – and I hope you enjoy it.

So Moleskin was originally founded in 1997 by the company moto and moto, they brought back a notebook that was supposedly used by artists and writers for the last two centuries in Paris, and I think the company that made the Parisian original notebook that looked like this went out of business and then Bruce Chatwin in the 60s couldn’t find it anymore or in the 80s. I’mM not sure I should have read up on that more in detail. Anyways, He went out of business for a while, and then the company moto moto picked up the idea and then, in 1997 created the moleskin journal with the trademark that we know today, and original notebook was only a pocket notebook.

That was the only thing that had for a little while and that’s the first one I purchased in 2003, so about six years after it was founded, and it’s also the first time I really fell in love with a notebook and enjoyed using it so much was my favorite notebook brand. I hardly purchased any other notebooks, even though back then they were expensive as well, but I still saved up all my money to buy a little note moleskin notebook because I loved him so much his first time.Â I felt really attached to an actual notebook â€˜course is just using it as a means to tend to put my thoughts on paper.

In 2006,Â moleskin was acquired by private equity firm and they changed their name from moto moto, the company, to actually the company name moleskin as well, and then in 2013, the company moleskin went public and straighted on the stock market, and that’s, incidentally, when I really noticed the quality of the brand going downhill and the paper quality being really awful, and I talked about this in my previous video, I made a video about a really shitty paper quality that they’ve been using back then and just now most can be falling apart even more.Â

I got really disappointed with the brand because it felt like they were putting their profits over the actual quality of a notebook. And when you have a price point like moleskin, you have to make a good product to really justify the price that you’re charging and you can’t just charge for the name of the brand. I know a lot of companies do that. But in my opinion, that’s not Okay.

And yeah in recent years, or actually last couple of years, I noticed the quality getting slightly better again. I just did a previous video where I talked about the moleskin quality in 2020. I’m pleasantly surprised that the paper quality is more consistent again and even though it is not a fountain-pen friendly paper, they really use a type of paper that I absolutely love. It’s soft, its velvety, it’s a very unique feel to it, and I just I love the smell of it, you’re, Just it’s just a joy using it when you get a really great paper in the moleskin, and it seems that they more consistent again.

So I want to show you some of my mole skins here and show you how the paper has changed over the years. Let me just find it for you real, quick, so see right here, so this moleskin here is the first one I ever purchased in 2003. As you can see, it looks pretty much like any moleskin you can buy in this day and age and then, here we have a second one from 2007 and then the last one I just purchased recently in 2020, and let me show you the paper up close and personal, I hope the camera picks this up a little bit, there’s slight variations and the coloring and the lining. So this is 2020. This is 2007 and then this is 2. 7 2003. So this once slightly more cream-colored and slightly dark, aligns 2007 and then used slightly wider paper again in recent years.

Gonna show you a writing sample for the older tooth. I mean the more recent ones here, as you can see, between 2007 in 2020. There’s not a whole lot of difference with the feathering and way through amid the ghosting can see the feather feather inside she shot as well againÂ at the top. We have 2020. No bottom ones. 2007, it’s pretty much the same, but it was said for a while in 2014 they used much crap your paper and then compared these bookmarks not much has changed there. . So this is the oldest one, it’s a little darker and then the new one has just slightly light light a bookmark and then your seven one as you can see, hardly any difference,

And the same will show you the, the elastic, the first one I purchased has A slightly thicker elastic it’s a little bit wider than the other ones slightly thinner. The top one again is the 2021 2007. So it’s the oldest to the newest, as you can see here and then the texture of the notebooks also still pretty much like the original one.

You can see right there, here We have the moleskin branding also hasn’t really changed, much used at the bottom, the same as well so yeah not much has changed there. They used to have these really flimsy thin ones. Maybe they still do for the pocket ones to use a thinner, flimsier elastics, but the, the hardcover ones use the same type of elastic so pretty consistent there and then, where most games like purses, don’t use.

I have here what is this like pockets daily planner, Just one more strong yep 2010 and then I have a couple: travel journals, city notebooks. We have New York and Paris here really loved using those on my trips.

And then we have here a daily planner classic hardcover large notebook, as I said first most ever made, was the pocket one since all they had and then they started making calendars and all Kinds of stuff – and let’s just want to show you the original one here, so you believe me that this is a original moto, moto moleskin and not this one? It’s branded with the modern logo, the news nowadays, it’s back in the days.

The pocket It’s still also pretty much the same I’ll show you that to the one through 2020 here and then this is the one from 2007 still pretty much the same product, so they kept their design pretty consistent over the last 20 years or so, and what I love About moleskins is that they’re kind of the ones that started the whole notebook in general culture, before then, not that I know of it was not really cult around notebooks and journaling, and I don’t less people work journaling. It was not really cool back then. So now there’s this whole movement around journaling and notebooks, and expressing yourself on the page on the paper and really being creative and just doing you on the pageÂ

Then here we have also a softcover notebook as well a little bit personal notes in there yeah. So after there’s plenty of moleskins, I’ve took a little break back in 2014/15 when the quality went downhill but recently seems like they’ve, got their stuff together again and making decent quality product. So I’m really happy about that.