REVIEW – If you’re a regular here at The Gadgeteer, you already know that love journals. But you might not know that I also love the Indiana Jones movies and those movies solidified my love of diaries in journals when they showed the “grail diary”. So when I saw an opportunity to buy a replica, I threw caution to the wind and ordered one. Let’s see if it was money well spent or money squandered.

The “grail diary” was a worn handwritten diary from the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade movie. It was the character Doctor Henry Jones, Sr’s diary where he collected all of his findings on the topic of the Holy Grail.

*Image of the grail diary is from the Indiana Jones Fandom page.

On the site where I ordered the grail diary replica, it was advertised to be a “stunning hand bound replica” with the image below.

But what I received looks like this:

As you can see, the book looks brand new and is not bound in leather, but just a brown covered modern machine bound book with an elastic band holding folded documents.

Maps, telegrams, and other documents (watch the video below to see all of the included documents).

The book itself has printed pages.

I remember some of the sketches from the movie.

There are also loose documents, papers, etc inside the book too.

And then I noticed that the cover detached from the book block! ARGH

I purchased this replica because I’m both a fan of the Indiana Jones movies and journals. I didn’t expect this book to be a perfect copy of the movie prop, but I expected it to be a representation of what was shown on the product page from where I ordered it. This wasn’t the case. The book that they advertise does not look anything like the one I received and then there’s the fact that it split open within minutes of me flipping through the pages.

Also note that their website says that this book is made in the USA and ships from the USA. That’s not true. It ships from China and then is repackaged and shipped from New Jersey via USPS. I know it shipped from China because they gave me the tracking number when I asked about it a couple of weeks after I ordered it. It took a full month for me to receive it.

I emailed them with pictures and complaints and they offered to reimburse me a whopping $8. Wow… Then after doing some extra googling, I noticed that there is what looks like an identical book on Amazon for substantially less money. I wish I’d seen that one first. At least I could make an easy return of a defective or unwanted product if I would have purchased it from Amazon! Oh well…

Price: $49.88 on Highhishoes and only $19.99 on Amazon Where to buy: Beaacun.com and Amazon Source: The sample for this review was purchased with my own funds.

This book has not been yet reviewed on Amazon.com, but there is one review from the Amazon.fr website, here is the summary: it’s a scam.

Fred, It’s not like they took my money and didn’t send me ANYTHING. But what they sent is not what they advertised. I have already complained and first, they offered me an $8 refund. I replied and demanded all my money back and they’ve upped the refund to $10. 😉

Actually there are 2 one-star reviews both saying that the received product looks nothing like the seller’s pictures.

If you bought it from Highhishoes that’s the issue, they’re a known copyright infringing setup, they’re hidden behind multiple business names, there’s no product from them that’s real/OEM.

I know this from my experience last fall ordering a National Parks Monsters calendar from them, it was very poorly made and I would even suggest the print master for the mages were just screenshots from the official site.

Diane, I’d never heard of them, it was a purchase on a whim.

The good news is that there is no doubt a real version of this made properly since they used it as the basis for their clone, it would probably be as nice as the pictured item which I would buy in a heartbeat, since I have the Indy set from the UK that came in a replica of the journal

Very cool! I’m jealous 😉

Caveat Emptor. It has happened to all of us who purchase some products from China that arrive in unusable condition.

Julie, you’ll find the real one (the one that’s pictured) on Etsy. Significantly higher priced, but that’s because it’s actually very good.

I sell a Grail Diary replica on Etsy..been selling since 2017 and the cost $220.00…sold over 600 since i started and have excellent reviews. I had to put up a fight when that same Chinese outfit started using pics of my diary they stole from my site. Now all my pics are watermarked.

Hi Mark, What’s the link to your Etsy shop? I’d like to check it out.

You can find it here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/529622533/henry-jones-sr-grail-diary-prop-replica

Between selling on Etsy and Ebay (and a couple on Bonanza and on The Prop Store) Ive sold over 600 of them. Two years ago I quit a job I held for 14 years to make & sell these diaries full-time. 🤠

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