Letts of London have origins dating back to 1796. Today a part of the Letts Filofax Group Ltd. (notably the owner of Yard-O-Led), such an established brand is amazing to contemplate. How many of today’s new brands will be around in two hundred years?
The name is among the most known in the stationery field. I’m not sure of their worldwide market, but the association with diaries and datebooks (at least in Canada) is historically very strong. Do you know Letts?
A past post mentioned a trip to Laywine’s. One of the items I found was a general purpose squared black notebook, the noteletts L5:squares.
Not a standard size, the hardcover notebook offers 192 pages of cream colour 172mm x 232mm paper with 5mm squared ruling. Though less common as a notebook size, it is almost exactly the same size as many hardcover books, and is fine with me.
The notebook was wrapped in plastic and very reasonably priced at $12.95 – much less than many products from competitors.
There was a big surprise, and I didn’t discern this before removing the plastic – it has a linen fabric cover. I would never have bought the notebook had I known this, as linen books strike me as being hard to maintain. I imagine dust and day to day activities overwhelming this type of cover. Maybe I am wrong. Are you a user of linen covered notebooks?
The individual pages feature a nice place to write the date.
They also have that dreaded branding.
The endpapers are grey, and the back has a pocket. Long term lime storage not recommended.
Not perfect for me, but definitely a nice product that was reasonably priced.
I was interested to read he comments on our Noteletts product and on our company. We are very proud of our heritage, Charles Letts our Sales and Marketing Director keeps the link with our founder intact and is the 7th generation of the Letts family involved with the business.
We are looking forward to celebrating the 200th anniversary of the world’s first commercial diary, published by our predecessor John Letts in 1812.
Noteletts is our notebook and journal brand. We are pleased with the reaction received to these new products and are always interested to read comments about them. By listening to and acting upon them we grow. The linen cover is a specific bookcloth and should resist the normal vagaries of a book cover. I use one myself on a daily basis (of course!) and find myself pleased with its durability.
Thanks for this review. The linen cover looks really good on the photo. I hope it will survive without collecting too much dust and dirt.
:o I’ve never seen this brand (Letts of London) before. I guess I’ll try to take a closer look at the more luxurious notebooks next time I visit a stationary store. I’m based in California, so maybe it’s not common here.
In the ’60s Letts completely dominated the market when it came to diaries and address books, making them in every conceivable size. I have my father’s field notebooks from the late 1940s, all linen covered but in remarkably good condition (yes, stained) after being dragged through the BC bush.
I agree about the limes. Hard to find good acid-free archival-quality limes these days.
One of the bigger bookstores in Taiwan called Eslite (pronounced in French) sells some products with cover treatment that looks very similar. I haven’t bothered to pick one up because I always get Apica or Rhodia instead, but I never got the impression that the covers were a problem…though the pocket sized ones might do double-duty as pocket lint collectors. How’s the paper quality in the Letts?
Hi Robert – thanks for the comment. :-) The paper is thick and toothy compared with some similar style products. I haven’t yet used it sufficiently to be comfortable offering a quality judgement.
FYI – For those of you who can’t find Letts of London products near you, you can order them from boardroomproducts.com. I’ve bought a couple from them; the prices are pretty reasonable.
I like the linen wrap. This would be good for me. Hm…now, where can I find it?
Is the lime a sly wink at Letts’ English heritage? Pisces6 & Duc: If you go to lettsusa.com, a “Letts Retail Locator” at the bottom of the website (in hard to see grey) will allow you to put in your zip code, then it gives you the closest stockists that carry the Letts line. You’re welcome, Mr. Gellaitry.
I saw some of these in my local B&M stationers’ yesterday. They do a very nice notebook in green and other colours, not just black.
I may well get one to try out in place of my old Mole.
Oh yes, the dreaded branding!
The cloth cover looks sturdy and resistant. Good color too. I’ve used cloth cover notebooks that get worn out quickly, but this one doesn’t look like it would.
I love this blog, by the way. I am learning about so many different brands…
All I can say is this: I found Letts of London by accident & just sent 2 christmas presents with free shipping. both were small notebooks . I like the free shipping but i’m not sure of the paper quality( we like it thin ) so I’ll hear back from my people soon if they are satisfied or not.
I was on the sales team with Letts early 80’s. A wonderful company to work for and I enjoyed selling such quality products. So glad to see they are still in business!