Recommend Me A Notebook - A4, White, Flat, Hardcover, No Ghosting

[Zebra]

Hello! Sorry if this question has been asked before, but I had no luck searching. I'm not even sure such an notebook/journal exists. The best match I could find thus far is the Quo Vadis Habana, but sadly that has an off-white paper.

 

My criteria are:

• A4 or Letter size
• Hardcover, or something in between hard and soft
• Lays flat on all pages
• White paper
• Very little ghosting
• Lined

Bonus criteria:

• Rounded edges
• Rubber band
• Numbered Pages
• 7mm Lined

[Gloucesterman]

I think you can find some Tomoe River white paper in a nice bound book. Several sources that advertise hereon FPN and check out etsy.com as another resource.

[rafapa]

Franklin-christoph firma flex have nor rubber band nor numbered pages but I believe they fulfill the other requierements.

[domnortheast]

Black n Red A4 casebound notebooks are excellent for fountain pens and fit your criteria.

 

http://www.blacknred.com/

Edited March 21, 2015 by Stanley Howler

[Zebra]

Thank you all for the suggestions!

 

I think you can find some Tomoe River white paper in a nice bound book. Several sources that advertise hereon FPN and check out etsy.com as another resource.

 

From what I've read, Tomoe River is some real nice paper but because it is so thin it suffers from rather strong ghosting / shine through.

 

Franklin-christoph firma flex have nor rubber band nor numbered pages but I believe they fulfill the other requierements.

 

I've never heard of the Franklin-Christoph, but that looks very promising except that the A4 version seems to not want to lay very flat.

 

Black n Red A4 casebound notebooks are excellent for fountain pens and fit your criteria.

http://www.blacknred.com/

 

Black n Red look like good quality notebooks, but they supposedly don't lay very flat either.

[SallyLyn]

Doesn't match much of your wants but look at Leuchtturm 1917. Nice paper.

--Sometimes 'got to kiss a lot of frogs'

[Intellidepth]

Have you tried the old bookbinder's technique to get pages to lay flat?

 

(Hardcovers typically stay less flat unless really well made with it in mind with slightly looser stitching; and appropriately glued front and back inside covers with a tiny bit of ease. Seek a stitched book with narrow sets of stitched bundles of pages visible at the top of the spine, not big bundles.)

 

- Open new book to centre, gently press open all the way down the seam.

- Collect a few pages from the centre with your left hand, hold them close to vertical but a little to the left, gently press open on the right hand side.

- Collect a few more pages from the right, gently press open.

- Continue until you reach the right cover.

- Then hold the centre bundle in your right hand and make your way through the left hand side of the book.

 

This'll ease it considerably and the binding will also naturally continue to ease with frequent use.

[luvpens]

Black n Red A4 casebound notebooks are excellent for fountain pens and fit your criteria.

 

http://www.blacknred.com/

Agree with the above,

 

I've used these often and are very good indeed..and they lay perfectly flat on all pages.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Black-Red-Wirebound-Notebook/dp/B000MFE716/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_2

Edited March 22, 2015 by luvpens

[Yaakova]

Have you tried the old bookbinder's technique to get pages to lay flat?

 

(Hardcovers typically stay less flat unless really well made with it in mind with slightly looser stitching; and appropriately glued front and back inside covers with a tiny bit of ease. Seek a stitched book with narrow sets of stitched bundles of pages visible at the top of the spine, not big bundles.)

 

- Open new book to centre, gently press open all the way down the seam.

- Collect a few pages from the centre with your left hand, hold them close to vertical but a little to the left, gently press open on the right hand side.

- Collect a few more pages from the right, gently press open.

- Continue until you reach the right cover.

- Then hold the centre bundle in your right hand and make your way through the left hand side of the book.

 

This'll ease it considerably and the binding will also naturally continue to ease with frequent use.

I was taught this method working from the front and back to the center. Collect a few pages from the front and back, press down, a few more, press down, until you get to the center.

[Intellidepth]

I was taught this method working from the front and back to the center. Collect a few pages from the front and back, press down, a few more, press down, until you get to the center.

Now that you've mentioned it, that's how I used to ease in 2" thick books with very thin pages (similar to Tomoe) and soft leather covers. I've obviously gotten lazy with thin journals that have thick pages and reversed the procedure . However, I do find that hard cover new books seem more fragile at front and back than in the centre.

[Moynihan]

I am a regular user Tomoe River Paper in both sheet and journal. If by "ghosting" you mean "show through" (as opposed to "bleed through) then ghosting is present and usually pronounced. I write on both sides though,

 

The two i think you night want to try, that i can personally recommend given your criteria, are:

Maruman Mnemosyne Imagination 8.3" x 11.7" (hard cover)

Apica Premium C.D. Notebook A4 (Card cover)

 

I would also suggest checking to see if Clairefontaine makes a hardcover in a4, which i think they do. Check the ghosting on that one.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Moynihan

[Bookman]

Black n Red A4 casebound notebooks are excellent for fountain pens and fit your criteria.

 

http://www.blacknred.com/

 

 

Agree with the above,

 

I've used these often and are very good indeed..and they lay perfectly flat on all pages.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Black-Red-Wirebound-Notebook/dp/B000MFE716/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_2

 

I agree. Although I've used the wirebound notebooks for years, I just began using a casebound A4 this week for my journal. It lies flat. And I've seen no show-through or bleed-through, not even from Noodler's Baystate Blue. I'm more than satisfied. By the way, they're also available in B&M stores. Check your local ones.

[Snamellit]

I like the Atoma A5 and A5 notebooks with disks. Good paper, discs make the paper lay flat and do not get beaten up like the spirals seem to do.

 

They have a variety of covers and there are some specialty shops making fancy hardcovers for them.

[Mr. Dante]

Black n' Red has both a hardcover and polycover spiral 90 GSM Optik paper -- awesome. No bleed/ghosting/feathering. Very white

Maruman Mnemosyne -- very good too. No bleed/feathering. Minimal ghosting. A little off-white.