It was Macfilos associate editor Bill Palmer wot dunnit. He mentioned the enigmatic word Leuchtturm in connection with notebooks. He knows I can’t resist a notebook, and his comment was especially apposite because I remembered seeing a Leuchtturm display in one of those wonderful old-fashioned stationery shops. The sort of place where everything is as it used to be and not everything comes in plastic display packs. I immediately recalled where I’d seen it and I lost no time in paying a second visit, this time with buying intent.
The Aladdin’s cave in question is Barbican Stationers in Goswell Road, City, just a hundred yards or so from Red Dot Cameras’ new emporium on the Islington side of the traffic lights. I’d spied the notebooks on my way from Barbican station to Red Dot; but hadn’t thought much about them until Bill did it. He told me he is a Leuchtturm addict.
Now I’d never come across Leuchtturm, which is German for lighthouse. And its a bit of a tongue twister for English palates: Just say Loich-turm and you can’t go far wrong.
It was extremely remiss of me to overlook Leuchtturm for all these years. I’ve been happy with Moleskine and Rhodia, in particular, but I have recently become rather frustrated with Moleskine since the ink from at least one of my Parker 51s has a nasty habit of working through to the other side of the paper. This an unforgivable sin in the notebook lover’s transgressions.
I was drawn to Leuchtturm on Bill’s recommendation because, he says, the ink doesn’t seep through the paper. It’s a selling point for Leuchtturm as I found out. But I was more intrigued by the date box at the top of every page and, wonder of wonders, individually numbered pages. To add icing to the cake, there is a three-page index at the start of every book so you can list your topics against page numbers. The paper is indeed of high quality and I can confirm that so far I have has no ink osmosical problems.
As with Moleskine books, there is a set of perforated pages at the back together with a pocket to hold bills and other small items. At extra cost you can buy a stick-on pen holder that is a very welcome addition.
Most sizes of Leuchtturm notebooks come in ruled, plain, squared or dotted versions. I’m already hooked and I am only surprised it has taken me so long to find a range of notebooks that has been in production since 1917. Better late than never, of course.
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You can find more from Bill Palmer at Lightmancer
Bureau Direct always have a good selection of their products, free p&p on orders over £10. I’ve been a sucker for quality stationery since I was young. Thanks mum !
Told you so… ;0)
There are two other clever things about Leuchtturm. Firstly their diaries deserve a mention. A week to a page, with a blank page for notes on the opposite side. Simple but effective. Secondly their "Whitelines" system which uses special grey printing and alignment boxes on each notebook page, allied to a mobile app, to make it easy to upload notes to the cloud. Really useful for work purposes. I have used Moleskine for twenty years or so (I have a shelf of the things to prove it). I gave up when manufacturing moved to China and the back pockets started to lose their bottoms after less than a month or two of receipt-holding. My current diary resides in a dark brown oiled leather cover by "Fenner Crafts", bought on Etsy. It makes it slightly more bulky, but it improves with age, a bit like me… ;0))
I am torn between Moleskine and Leuchtturm. I too am a little frustrated with the paper Moleskine uses these days as it turns out that you need the right combination of ink and paper to really enjoy that fancy fountain pen (Montblanc or whatever your preference is). However, I still find that Moleskine is just a touch more elegant than Leuchtturm. Leuchtturm is very German: practical, thoroughly engineered and perhaps just a little too perfect, too plain, too boring.
In any case, I wanted to share that if you go through the online shop of Leuchtturm, you can get your personalized notebooks. They meanwhile offer quite a lot of customisations including printing names, initials and messages.