General Information

The Grail Diary is one of the most sought after props from the Indiana Jones Trilogy. It was written by Henry Jones (Indy's Father) during forty years of research, traveling etc. The journal is filled with clues to the whereabouts of the lost relic. Found within this work of art are notes, sketches, maps, all the musings of an intellectual in pursuit of a legend of history. "every clue he followed, every discovery he made, the complete account of his quest for the Holy Grail" as Indy sais in the movie.
The Lucasfilm Archives states that the book measures 17x10cm, but I know there is a one cm error so the correct measurments are 16x10 and 3 cm wide.
In 1989, after the film was released, a Computer Game was made, and with it came a copy of the Grail Diary. This diary, despite beeing a very bad replica (it has only 64 pages of text and five or six drawings) is often used by replica makers to complete their diaries, as it gives a very interesting account of Henry's Quest, mentioning his feelings, thoughts and adventures. It also gives a Grail Story which is mainly correct, so it is good if you do not know much about the Grail history . Following this link you will find images of all the pages in this Diary.
About the actual prop used in the movie, what I can say is that much of the data found within the diary was taken from a work of non-fiction called The Grail: Quest for the Eternal by John Matthews. This book is still in print in a softcover format. The prop makers of this journal went so far as to photocopy parts of Matthews' book into the diary. Other pictures were hand-copied into the blank book.
Another interesting tidbit about this prop is that not all the pages are unique. The prop men used the same phrases and paragraphs over and over throughout the journal. Only rarely can text be made out during the movie. For dozens of photos of the pages of the original prop refer to The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives.

 

Authentic Prop Diaries

 

Lucasfilm Archives picture of the Last Crusade Grail Diary
Measures 10x16x3 cm

This diary is the one pictured in The Lucasfilm Archives. By examing the order of the pages, as seen in the movie, it is clear that this is not the diary used in the scene at Henry's house. For more information on this book, go to the sources page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the description of the Grail Diary that is being auctioned at Christies in London on December 12th. A rare prop facsimile manuscript book known as the 'Grail Diary', approximately one hundred and fourteen pages, of which twelve blank, 8°, bound in calf leather, pages and cover edges deliberately rubbed and aged, contained within the pages of the book a prop train ticket Pacific Electric Ry. Cash Fare and Joint Ticket and a prop U.S. dollar bill attached to one of the pages, the book secured with a black elastic tie -- made for the 1989 Paramount/Lucasfilm production Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade; accompanied by a ticket Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Cast and Crew Screening, 14th May, 1989, Odeon, Leicester Square; a black and white print of a signed publicity photograph of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones (signature printed) -- 6½x5in. (16.6x12.7cm.); a black and white photograph of Sean Connery as Dr. Henry Jones -- 5½x4½in. (14x11.5cm.); and two documents concerning the provenance (a lot)

 

Below are images from one of the diaries at the williams collection. As you can see, several pages are repeated and there are some blanks. This diary shows less aging than the other photos of props, and has no ink stains.
In this image we can see the cover of the book, a certificate of authentithy and a photo of Henry Jones that could make a good insert.

 

 

 

 

 

This image shows, on the left page, the story of Taliesin, a page repeated several times, and on the right page, the drawing of the Shrine at the Sainte Chapelle.	The left page on this image is the first part of the three trials double spread, and the right page was left blank.
This page is the spread known as the 1899 dollar double spread page. You can see the text at the pages section	This page shows the bottom part of the Venice Stained Glass Window and a map labeled as "This Wilderness of the Wanderings"
The left page of this set shows the Venice Stained Glass Window and the right page, another version of the "leap of faith" drawing.	The left page of this set was left blank while the right one contains the story of Melchizadek
The left page shows a knight praying infront of some kind of cup and the left set shows a page which can be seen briefly in the movie. You can find the text here on the Pages Section.	Although most of this set is obscured by the George Washington Quote (see Inserts), it can all be reconstructed. See the guide to text to find it.

 

Here are some pictures from another diary sold in the williams collection. Click on each of them to see a larger version.

Here we see the page known as "The Grail Mass & Omphalos". We can see at the back the top of the Los Angeles Railyard ticket of which we have a complete photo at the Inserts section.	In this image we can see the "Three trials double spread" and at the back the set labaled as "The Wilderness of the Wanderings"
In this set we see the melchizdek pages, and at the back, the top of the other side of the blue ticket! See inserts for more information.

 

Here is a picture by courtesy of Indy Magnoli, clipped from the Smithsonian magazine. It shows the Three trials double spread, and a proof that the diary contained two blue tickets! The picture which is covered by some pages at the bottom is the one seen in most photos, and we have a picture of it. The other is the one used to bookmark the Three Trials set.