6 for £6 from Nero's Notes

Loving the new logo!
(Another book as well as the 6 for £6 is in this wrapped selection)

6 for £6 (or, as it appears on the website, "six 4 six") does what it says on the tin! For £6 you get a random selection of 6 notebooks. As Stu describes it on the site:

Discount Sales are few and far between at Nero's Notes. We do our best to keep prices fair all the time. This is our lucky dip box. As the name suggests, there will be at least six books for six pounds. That might be two three packs, or it might be six singles or any other combination.

Great value for money, perfect as a stocking filler or just for a little treat. Who knows what extras Nero might throw in...

Despite having more small notebooks than I will possibly ever use in a lifetime, I decided to check this out. After all, I'm not sure that any of the books on the site are only a pound to buy!

As ever, the parcel arrived with everything beautifully wrapped. I love the logo for Nero's Notes on the stickers. In the picture above, there's also a Nero's Notes leather notebook which I'll be reviewing soon.

So, what were the six books that were in the "six 4 six"? Well, either Stu can't count, or Nero sneaked in an extra, because I had seven books! There are no pen tests for any of the notebooks - partly because I haven't had time to do them and partly because the post is more to show you the kind of contents you might get.

The seven books were:
[tl;dr An absolutely brilliant bargain. Now read all of the post!]

1. A Traveller's Notebook sized notebook by personalised-stationery.co.uk
I didn't see these listed anywhere on the Nero's Notes site, but I may just have been looking in the wrong place...

Still with card band

Cover with band removed

The notebook has 26 pages (52 sides) of lined notepaper, size 110mm x 210mm (standard TN size). Top margin is 22mm, bottom margin is 6mm, line-spacing is 7mm.

Inside the notebook

The cover is just beautiful and I usually have a notebook in the back of my everyday carry TN, for notes on the run. This will be just perfect!

2. A Public Supply notebook in blue (dot grid)
These normally come in a set of 3 for £12.50 (see here for the listing on Nero's Notes).
The notebook is 3.5" x 5.5" / 9 cm x 14 cm (same as Field Notes). There are 24 pages (48 sides) of dot-grid paper, with the Public Supply mark (P - S) on the bottom RHS of each spread. I'm not the biggest lover of this, because it's not right at the bottom right-hand side, but 3 dots up and 3 dots in from the corner. On the cover is space for a title for the notebook. Everyone knows how little I like Field Notes (rubbish paper) but these feel like they may be much better quality than FN.

3. A Write Notepads & Co - Telegraph - Limited Edition Pocket Notebook
These were last year's Write Notepads & Co.'s limited edition and were £12 for 3, but have been reduced to £8 for 3. The listing on Nero's Notes is here and describes these books as follows:

• 3.75” x 5.5” lined paper notebook
• Glue bound notebook with 100-pound cover stock and a 70-pound paper stock which has been meticulously selected to perform best for most writing instruments
•  Each book contains 64 pages

The pages have a top margin of 12mm and line-spacing of 6.4mm. There is also a double-margin on the LHS of each page, making them useful for a check-list.

4. A Calepino Cut Form Crush Notebook
These are available on the Nero's Notes site at £15 for 3 (see the listing here). The site descibes them as follows:

• Each 9x14cm notebook has 48 dot-grid pages on a 100% recycled 90g paper made in France.
• The golden "Calepino" hot stamping on the back cover is done manually in the typographic workshop of Calepino.

This is a lovely wee notebook. The cover is very attractive and the dots are fairly unobtrusive. Given that it's recycled paper, I'm not sure how well it will stand up to fountain pens, but most of my little notebooks don't need to be able to cope with that, as they are used for notes on the go.

Here are 2, 3 and 4 together:

5, 6 & 7. A pack of three Whitelines lined notebooks

These are currently listed on Nero's Notes at £4.50 for the three (see the listing here), though there is also an indication that these are reduced (by £4.50). The site describes them as:

• 48 pages, 6mm lines 3.5" x 5.5" / 9 cm x 14 cm 
• Sold in packs of 3 
• 80g paper weight 
• Staple binding 
• Made in Sweden

Whitelines are different in that they have a grey background, with white lines (or dots if you buy the dot version), hence the name. I've never tried Whitelines before, but these look great.

Verdict:
What a bargain!!! Even allowing for some of the notebooks to currently be on sale or perhaps be ultimately discontinued, and Nero's Notes needing to make space for new stuff, this is a seriously good bargain! I don't know how much the TN book normally retails for, but even setting that aside, the cost of the others (if you could buy them singly) adds up to more than £16. You can see why pretty much everyone who buys one of these 'mystery selections' comes back and buys another (and another...).

Disclaimer: Although Stu (the owner of Nero's Notes) and I are good friends, I bought this pack, I was not given it. All of the views in this post are my own, unbiased opinions. If I hated a book, I wouldn't recommend it (even if I had been given it!). If you don't believe me, read some of my posts about Moleskines or Field Notes. 😃