Putting my money where my money is

My two friends and I were in a home design store the other day and we came across this interesting wallet that holds cards in a plastic cartridge with a retracting lid. It didn't look like it would be very convenient or I would link it here. Anyway this got us talking about wallets and I realized I've seen lots of cool wallet designs. Even though I have a simple leather one I did at one time consider the Wallet 2.0 or the Jimi.

Wallet 2.0 is made of soft silicone and comes in green, blue, white, black and red. It uses unique clear inserts to separate bills, coins, cards and other items and each insert has a cool little motto on it like "most idealistic people are skint." It has a couple of holes on the side so you can attach a lanyard for keys or tie it to your belt, etc.. The $35 cost is a little high and I've heard the hole on the front lets in deritus from your pocket, but it's a cool design nonetheless. The only colors left on the site are blue and black.


The Jimi and the JimiX are built of a clear recycled plastic shell that gives them an advantage over the Wallet 2.0 by being able to display an ID without taking it out. It's very thin and holds four cards, as well as one card and three folded bills on a detachable money clip. There is a hole for a lanyard as well. The JimiX has the money clip on the outside in case you like carrying huge sums of cash. It comes in nine colors and costs $15. Considering that it's enclosed I would probably pick this over the Wallet 2.0.

tinymeat is a designer wallet/case production house based in Portland, Oregon. They get contributions from artists such as Miss Kika and Mikeatron and sell their wares through Etsy. Their wallets are usually simple single-folds with a variety of functionality. Some of my favorites are The Wallet, Pegacorn, Thriftycuts, Yeticorn, Doodle wallet, and Love Me Soup. They're either printed on vinyl or suede, I can't tell. Most go for $15.

The Australian-designed dosh is made of "hi-tech flexible Desmospan© TPU material from Bayer MaterialScience" whatever the hell that is. It has a more traditional single-fold design with a pocket for bills and slits for cards. dosh comes in black, white, brown and orange and costs 60 bloody dollars but is only sold online from one California shop.

Cool Hunting did a post about wallets designed by Martin Margiela to look like a folded wad of cash, either Euros or Dollars. They cost an insane £195.

Style site Refinery29 did a four page post about designer wallets including this one made out of old cassette tapes, my favorite.

Mywallit.com carries a multitude of wallet designed in many color combinations, though their catalog isn't very browsing friendly.

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Lifehacker wrote about a couple of wallet tips to organize and backup your wallet. The idea of photocopying your wallet's contents is something I hadn't thought of, and you know the risks of having your credit cards stolen and maxed out.

Instructables user RTourn came up with this guide for making a change card. Basically it's a rectangle made of cardboard that holds a dollar's worth of coins to keep in your wallet. Easier to carry than loose change and makes it convenient to have exact change if, say, you need to take a bus or use a picky vending machine.

That's about all I could come up with on the subject, but if you find anything else interesting feel free to post it up in the comments.