Spent $35 on a midori notebook and it lasted me only 3 months

I figured the thicker paper would hold up to my heavy ink use (mostly fountain pens) but the binding started falling apart around week 10. The cotton threads just gave out while I was flipping through my May spread. Has anyone else had luck with a specific brand that actually lasts a full year?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_mason885d ago

$35 for three months? That's like paying for a luxury hotel and getting a tent with a hole in it. I've been there with the fancy Japanese brands too, thought I was investing in quality but turns out I was just investing in disappointment. My fountain pen collection is big enough to fund a small country and I've found that the Leuchtturm1917 holds up way longer even with heavy ink saturation, the binding stays tight past the 6 month mark for me. Had a Moleskine fall apart on me in 8 weeks once and I still get mad thinking about it, those things are overpriced paper towels basically. For real though, stay away from anything with glued bindings if you're heavy handed like me, go for sewn bindings that look like they're actually stitched together.

johnh825d ago

Iris, you nailed it with the glued bindings thing. I learned that the hard way with a cheap journal that shed pages like a tree in autumn. Even my nicer ones with glued spines start to gap and wobble after a few months. That Leuchtturm1917 you mentioned really is the gold standard for durability in my book, the sewn binding just stays put no matter how much ink you throw at it.