Refillable Notebooks

[Nerdyhistorian]

Are there notebooks out there that are refillable? Preferably with a leather cover.

 

 

 

[Arcadian]

Traveller's makes a great leather cover for their unbound MD-paper notebooks.

 

My travel journal I bought in Paris, in a small shop called Grim Art, is refillable, and one of my favourite possessions.

 

 

- P.

[bogiesan]

Try jennibik.com. Not affiliated, just happy long time customer.

I also have two Traveller’s Notebooks in camel and brown. Odd sizes so unless you are creative, you can get locked into their supplies of inserts. They use elastic bands to hold up to three stapled soft-cover inserts. Goulet is a dealer. Again, not affiliated, happy customer.

 

However, when I’m traveling, I take a molie.

[BaronWulfraed]

Are there notebooks out there that are refillable? Preferably with a leather cover.

 

 

Would some of the Circa/Arc/Tul (Levenger/Staples/Office Max|Depot) (and other brands) disc-based systems qualify?

 

Faux Leather: https://www.levenger.com/circa-326/circa-notebooks-339/circa-filigree-foldover-notebook-16511.aspx

Garish Leather: https://www.levenger.com/circa-326/circa-notebooks-339/bright-ideas-circa-leather-foldover-notebook-16456.aspx

Something more business-like: https://www.levenger.com/circa-326/circa-notebooks-339/luxe-midnight-circa-leather-foldover-notebook-15107.aspx

 

And if just have cover flaps isn't sufficient: https://www.levenger.com/men-s-22937/padfolios-23007/bomber-jacket-circa-zip-padfolio-13251.aspx

[ISW_Kaputnik]

Just curious, are we considering the leather cover and the refillable notebook as separate items or the same thing? For example, you might have a loose leaf type notebook which is refillable in itself, and then a cover that goes over that. Or you might just have a cover that's designed to go over bound notebooks of a particular size. Or you might have a loose leaf type notebook which itself has a leather cover, as BaronWulfraed mentioned above.

 

I have a leather cover for A5 size bound notebooks which cost me about $50 some years back. It was a special edition made by Franklin Christoph for the web site Badger and Blade, and it's quite nice, with the cover having sleeves to hold the front and back covers. Also a pen loop which is completely superfluous as far as I'm concerned. I've used it with A5 sized journals from FC itself, Apica, Life, and Nanami Seven Seas (Tomoe River paper). But I've had a look at Franklin Christoph's current offerings; the styling is different (and rather nice) but they are pricey.

 

If you want leather, there is nothing else that I can recommend from personal experience, although there are plenty of them out there. There are a lot of rugged or rugged looking nylon cases to hold notebooks; this one got some mentions around here a while back, and although currently unavailable, shows the type of thing that I mean.

[Arcadian]

Traveller's makes a great leather cover for their unbound MD-paper notebooks.

 

My travel journal I bought in Paris, in a small shop called Grim Art, is refillable, and one of my favourite possessions.

 

 

- P.

My bad, I meant Midori - Midori has that nice leather cover for their MD paper notebooks. However, Traveller's is also a wonderful notebook with great versatility, they are just two different types.

 

- P.

[DonLeone]

I've been in the Atoma/Levenger style disk bound system for many years. You can just move pages wherever you want. If you get the special punch, you can add any paper you want. The default paper is usually poop so I swapped it out. I really only bought sets of disks and covers.

 

Atoma itself doesn't innovate at all. I've been waiting for good leather covers for decades but they kept coming out with dumb overpriced plastic or cardboard covers that had designer designs on them. They added the loden line. It was cool. Cardboard with a felty feel. I got those but the covers eventually died on me. These were not for daily carry.

 

Then they came out with a felt cover that wraps around the disks which was pretty cool. https://www.atoma.be/en/designer-series/11-alain-berteau.html I used that for a while.

 

They came out with actual thick leather covers a few years back but these didn't wrap around. The disks kept poking my bags and you can see the outline of the disks on the outside of my edc bag. The disks are a great idea and many copied it but it was Filofax who did some great stuff with it.

 

The filofax notebook system https://uk.filofax.com/index.php/notebooks.html took the disk bound system, fused it with wirebound systems and got the best of both worlds. The covers actually wrap around so my bag doesn't get poked, nothing snags and they (usually, some exceptions exist) come with an elastic band attached so I can keep it closed and don't have to worry too much about leaving loose pieces of papers, pamphlets or whatever in there.

 

The Atoma punch cost me 100 euros or more. The Filofax punch is "only" around 40 euros. I bought two of em. One for home and one at work. It also is machined better than the Atoma one (although my Atoma one may have been an early version because I bought it when they didn't advertise its existence).

 

The BEST part about it the Filofax system is that their paper is true A5 size. Atoma has A5 and a bit extra, leading to more square pages, meaning if you drop an A5 sized page in there, it will be oddly sized compared to the default papers. Filofax doesn't do that. You can mix and match any A5 paper, it won't mess with you. On an Atoma notebook, if I add A5 sized pages, any pages that are on top of it... if I write on it, I'll feel the edge of the smaller sized page beneath it.

 

Atoma paper is expensive compared to dollarstore knock-offs. But the dollar store knockoffs don't feather as much. I consider Atoma paper a scam.

 

Filofax notebook paper appears to be fountain pen friendly by default.

 

The covers aren't leather.. I think. Phleather? They seem rugged enough. I've also got the felted covers and the wood grain one. It's not real wood obviously but it's cool.

 

I do worry about their tendency to bring out sparkly and flashy covers. Whenever I try to buy a new notebook, I have to have the store special order the default solid colors. I also don't like how their "miraclebind" is dropping one of the rings for some reason.

 

I'm fully invested in the Filofax Notebook system right now. It feels much more professional and solid than the Atoma system and it has the wraparound cover that I like.