Leuchtturm 1917 Dot Grid Notebook

[eherreid]

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Apologies in advance for my atrocious, yellowish indoor lighting photos. I do try.

 

Prologue: I went through a period a few years back when I used Moleskines quite a bit as journals. I liked the sleek feel of them, their simple, elegant appearance, the nice little features like the back pocket, bookmark ribbon, and elastic closure. Ultimately, however, I couldn't justify the cost, particularly since I had lots of issues with the paper and fountain pen ink: feathering and bleeding on some pages, beading of ink and smearing on others. Frustrating.

 

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Moleskine feathering--see all the little hairy looking extensions on my letters? Eek!

 

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Bleed-through on the back of the Moleskine page. Note that this was not a particularly "bleedy" ink, or a broad nib.

 

Since those days, about a zillion Moleskine clones have showed up on the market: compact notebooks with the hard cover, the pocket, the elastic, the bookmark. I'd noted that the Leuchtturm1917 was gaining some attention here and on other pen sites and blogs and such, and when I saw them at Powell's City of Books in Portland, OR for a fairly reasonable price, I grabbed one to try.

 

At this point, I'm on my second of these notebooks: first I used the black blank one I bought at Powell's. The second, my current journal, is a purple dot grid version.

 

What I like:

 

I've had almost *no* issues with bleed-through or feathering with fountain pen or dip pen inks. A very, very wet ink could possibly feather or bleed, but even my fairly wet medium fountain pen nibs do pretty well, as did dip pens with sumi ink. Also, the paper has just a hint of texture to it, making it nice for pencil as well.

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Back side of the page. There's show-through due to the thin paper, but really only the Sharpie bleeds, and only an eensy bit. Not bad...

 

<<For additional likes, dislikes, indifferents, see link to my blog at the bottom of the review>>

 

Bottom line:

They aren't perfect, and I wouldn't declare them a Moleskine killer. For the zillion and a half people who use gel pens or ballpoints and who don't care about the other little features the Leuchtturm1917 offers, Moleskine may remain the better choice. And Moleskines are everywhere, after all. (Even Target, now!) They're convenient.

 

I'm sold, nonetheless. The Leuchtturm1917 notebooks have most of the features I like about the Moleskine (hard cover, bookmark, elastic, pocket, at least kinda lays flat) and a few others I really appreciate (page numbers, dot grid format), the paper is way better, and none of the drawbacks are utter deal breakers to me. They're my journal of choice for the time being. I just hope the price remains reasonable-ish!

 

Vitals as reviewed:

249 slightly off-white dot grid pages

Acid-free 80gsm paper

A5 size (5.75 x 8.25")

Designed in Germany, printed and bound in Taiwan

 

For the full review and even *more* lousy photos(!!), view on my blog.

Edited June 17, 2011 by eherreid

[Notebookish]

Just saw this. I have a Leuchtturm 1917 Master size in both dots and squared. Some things I wonder if others have noticed:

 

- The squared version and dot version have very different paper. Squared: deeper color, more fibrous feeling paper. Dots: less deep color, a little smoother to write on, but ink smudges more on it, especially Noodler's fox red, which escapes my pen is globs when I write on this paper (BP Black is a bit more manageable, but still smudges more than on Moleskine). I need to place a sheet between each page to prevent smudging.

 

- In the squared version, my writing starts out smooth, wet, and pleasant, but starts to feel progressively more fibrousy as I write, to the point where, after about two pages, I feel like I'm writing on felt or something. My only conclusion is that paper fibres must be gathering under my nib.

 

- The dots version has these filmy spots where the ink doesn't lay down well, as if you're writing over gel. Tilting the paper to a certain angle, I can see in the light that these areas clearly have oily fingerprints on them. This of course means it is my doing ... at the same time, however, I have never had this experience with other notebooks, or even with the squared version of Leuchtturm, which means that the dotted version must have some kind of tendency to pick up natural body oils. (Writing over the area twice, as in, tracing over your initial text, finally lays the ink down clearly.)

 

- The dots and squared both form a 5 mm grid, yet for some reason on the dots, I end up writing bigger, and in sometimes varying sizes. In the square version, I write in a consistent size, making the writing look nicer and more uniform. But the squared version is the one that feels like felt, hence while the product looked nicer, the act of writing was more unpleasant.

 

- The elastic strap is far looser than on Moleskines and Piccadillys.

 

My feelings about Leuchtturm are mixed and disappointing. The format is almost perfectly what I'm looking for: slightly larger than A4 allowing for generous margins without the main sections looking narrow and squashed; and nice labels, page numbers, and tables of contents. However the paper has at times seriously bothered me. If the problem is my pen (Lamy Safari EF, with Noodler's BP black) and I can find some better pen/ink combo to work with this, I'd love it.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Notebookish

[Joe in Seattle]

Good review. I prefer the 1917 dot to anything but a dot webbie, but the 1917 is about half the cost, so I use them regularly.