About LEUCHTTURM1917
LEUCHTTURM1917 traces back to 1917 in Geesthacht near Hamburg, Germany, where the company began under the name Koch & Bein producing stamp and coin albums before re-establishing in Hamburg after the war. The notebook line that carries the LEUCHTTURM1917 name launched in 2005, and the company remains a family-run Hanseatic business now in its fourth generation.
The catalogue centers on the Classic hardcover notebook family, built with numbered pages, a blank index, two ribbon bookmarks, an expandable back pocket, and paper weights that run up to 120gsm, alongside sketchbooks, weekly planners, and dated journals. The brand also co-developed the Official Bullet Journal Edition with method creator Ryder Carroll, building the pre-printed index, key, and legends the method calls for directly into the notebook. In our own testing, its dot-grid notebook carried the heaviest paper in our lineup, and its Bullet Journal edition arrived with that BuJo scaffolding ready to use from page one.
Brand website: leuchtturm1917.us
What LEUCHTTURM1917 makes
LEUCHTTURM1917's range runs wider than the products we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Classic Hardcover Notebooks
A5, B5, and A4+ hardcover notebooks with numbered pages, a blank index, and paper up to 120gsm — featured on DeskRated
Official Bullet Journal Edition
Co-developed with Ryder Carroll, with a pre-built index, key, and three bullet-journal legends — featured on DeskRated
Sketchbooks
150gsm acid-free paper for dry media, pen, and ink across four sizes
Weekly & Academic Planners
Dated weekly, weekly-and-notebook, and academic-year planner formats
Some Lines a Day
A 5-year daily journal with one page per day split into five yearly sections
Jottbooks & Notepads
Smaller pocket-format notepads for quick notes and lists
Why we recognized LEUCHTTURM1917
The DeskRated Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose products consistently stand out in our hands-on category reviews. LEUCHTTURM1917 earned it on the strength of the products below, evaluated the same way every product on this site is: bought, used at a real desk, and judged on merit.
LEUCHTTURM1917 products we rated highly
LEUCHTTURM1917 Notebook Edition A5 Hardcover Dotted Journal — 120gsm, 203 Numbered Pages
In our testing this carried the heaviest paper in our notebook lineup at 120gsm, handling fountain pens, gel pens, and saturated highlighters without bleed-through. Pre-numbered pages, a blank table of contents, two ribbon bookmarks, and an expandable back pocket combine into a documentation system built for meeting notes and project tracking, and the thread-sewn binding lies flat from page one to page 203.
Read the 7 Best Notebooks of 2026 guide →
LEUCHTTURM1917 The Official Bullet Journal Edition 2 — Medium A5 Dotted, 204 Pages
This is the notebook the Bullet Journal method was standardized on, co-developed with creator Ryder Carroll — it ships with a pre-printed, pre-numbered index and three built-in bullet-journal legends, so rapid logging is ready on day one instead of hand-ruled scaffolding. Edition 2's 120gsm paper handles fountain pens, brush pens, and saturated markers with minimal ghosting.
Read the 9 Best Journals of 2026 guide →What earned LEUCHTTURM1917 the recognition
- Over a century of stationery manufacturing since 1917, run today as a fourth-generation, Hamburg-based family business.
- Co-developer of the Bullet Journal method with creator Ryder Carroll, building the pre-numbered index and key system directly into its notebooks.
- 120gsm paper across its dot-grid notebook and Bullet Journal editions, the heaviest weight in our notebook and journal reviews, built to handle fountain pens and brush pens without bleed-through.
- A complete documentation system out of the box: numbered pages, a built-in index, two ribbon bookmarks, and an expandable back pocket.
- A broad catalogue spanning hardcover notebooks, sketchbooks, weekly planners, and dated journals, giving buyers one brand across formats.