[Pen/Pencil Review] The Leuchtturm 1917 Dots Notebook
Normally Monday is reserved for pens and pencils – but occasionally I stray into other forms of office supplies. The week of Thanksgiving I not only had the lovely surprise of the set from Pentel, but discovered I’d won a Leuchtturm 1917 from Steve Duncan at www.RecordingThoughts.com. So this week, a German made notebook I probably never have discovered on my own. The Leuchtturm 1917 is made and designed in Germany and distributed in the US and Canada by Kikkerland Design. As the name implies, the Leuchtturm company has been making stationary since 1917.
The Leuchtturm 1917 has table of contents pages, stickers, and numbers on the pages to keep all your thoughts and projects. There’s a bookmark ribbon and an elastic band to hold the notebook closed. This notebook is 5.75″ x 8.25″. It’s thread bound in a yellow tan synthetic leather. The pages are printed with blue dots so the pages can be used as either lined or graph paper. The paper is 80 grams, acid free, and claims to be no bleed/ink proof.
So…not sure what “no bleed” means. Ink doesn’t go all the way through to the next page, but you can see through the paper, so it would be harder to write on both sides of the page. The paper is nice. It feels rich and isn’t slick feeling. It has some perforated pages and an expandable pocket. I’m looking forward to using it.
The Numbers.
1. How does it work? – 0.5 – It does have a thread binding and purports to lie flat. And it does…if you open it to the middle. I’m still afraid of breaking the binding. You can see ink through the paper.
2. Look and feel – 1 – It’s solid. The notebook feels nice. It looks great. It’s all color coordinated between the cover and the elastic and the ribbon. It’s a nice looking/feeling notebook.
3. Material – 0.5 It’s got GOOD paper but not great paper. The Rhodia notebooks have thicker, higher quality paper. But it’s better than a lot of other notebooks. For a book that purports to have “details make all the difference” – that’s one of them. I’m okay with thread bound bindings, but I’m always afraid of breaking them at the front and back – because I have.
4. Overall Design – 0.5 – It’s a really good notebook overall. It’s a bit nicer than the Moleskine, but not quite as nice as Rhodia. But the ability to find them make them a bit scarcer.
5. Price Point – 1 – This is not a cheap notebook. These will run about $20 for this size. That’s in line with Rhodia and Moleskine. For someone looking for this kind of higher end notebook, the price point is in line. I’m glad I won this one, because it’s not something I splurge on.
3.5 out of 5 bronze pencils.
