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Baron Fig Raspberry Honey Confidant

A sweet treat indeed…

Today I got my hands on the latest Confidant notebook from Baron Fig – the “Raspberry Honey”. The interesting name and styling was part of a collaboration with artist Geoff Gouveia, whose story and illustrations grace both the box, notebook, and included short story booklet. Geoff’s designs add a quirky, yet fitting style to this latest Confidant edition. So how does it stand up?

The problem with most notebooks and fountain pens is a simple one – a poor paper choice means a poor writing experience. The core issue is ink flow. With fountain pens you can mimic that of your typical rollerball if equipped with a fine nib, but step up to a broad or stub nib and things tend to go down hill quickly. Usually poor paper will soak up the ink and let it bleed both across and through the writing surface. Fortunately where the Confidant shines is in the paper choice – the surface is just as happy with a fine nib as it is with a 6mm Pilot Parallel. The tooth (how rough the paper is) on the Confidant is very smooth, yet still retains just enough to keep it from feeling glossy. What this means is a paper that writes well, dries quickly, has no bleed through and can deal with anything you throw at it.

The Raspberry Honey edition comes in their medium “Flagship” size with 192 pages measuring 5.4″ x 7.7″.  The off-white pages are covered in a light grey dot-grid spaced every 5mm which is my preferred paper choice for a writing/sketching notebook. The bright red cover has been debossed with a swarm of bees and is a nice touch for this limited edition run that sets it apart from the normal Confidant options.  The spine is made to lay flat (it takes a little breaking in) and works great due to the section sewn method used.  In this binding method,  pages are folded together into small sections (signatures). Each section is then sewn into the following sections along the spine. The spine is then glued together for extra support and the cover then attached. With this section sewn spine method the book will lay flat, regardless of how thick it is.

The “Raspberry Honey” edition is available today via Baron Fig for $20 – putting it inline with similar offerings from other premium notebook vendors like Leuchtturm, Moleskine, and Rhodia.

Full Disclosure: The notebook was sent my way at no charge by the folks at Baron Fig for review purposes.

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