I absolutely love Bindewerk’s Purist A5 lined notebooks. For me, they blow Moleskine out of the water. I am not sure if I am right but nowadays the quality of the paper in Moleskines seems to depend on where they were produced and which year. About two years ago I decided to find something else and have now switched to Bindewerk. They have a lovely wide range, do custom orders (or they used to when I first contacted them) and are not pricey (depending on where you buy them).
I buy mine very cheaply in my local hobby shop, but have also bought them from Scripta-Paris, where they are more expensive but still well worth it. I have heard that if you are outside of Germany and contact Bindewerk via email, you are able to order direct from them, but I have never tried it myself.
The covers are made from very hard cardboard, the spine is cloth and the matching round closure-elastic slots into a groove. The elastic is easily removed for replacement or if you don’t like closures on your books. The books are very hardy.
The paper is cream and can be lined or unlined. It has a nice tooth and holds all kinds of ink well.
If you want to have a look at their site, here it is. Here are their notebooks, and their calendars. If you want an English version of their whole site, open it in Chrome and choose to translate it.
These are now available in the US at orangeartstore.com
Thank you!