The popularity of minimalist wallets is driving innovation in this field, providing the people with what they have been craving – the downsizing of the traditional men’s and women’s wallets of the past. I’ll admit that I’m one of those people who has been craving a smaller wallet. This time I’m reviewing the SZNS (pronounced “seasons”) Burnt Sienna wallet. Thus far, I’ve found that it is an attractive minimalist wallet for today’s professional, it’s a nice size for credit cards and business cards, it’s made of very thin leather to minimize thickness, and has RFID blocking in each of its three pockets. However, because it is made of very thin leather, I wonder about the longevity of the wallet.

The SZNS wallet came in an attractive black box with a sliding drawer.

The wallet also came with an SZNS decal and a microfiber cloth to clean the wallet.

Design & Build Quality

First Impression: One of the first things that you notice about the SZNS Burnt Sienna wallet is that it holds your cards and paper money vertically. I love that feature. The front and back of the wallet are similar. Each side has a pocket with a diagonal opening to insert cards and/or banknotes. The front of the wallet displays the “SZNS” logo located along the bottom right corner and the back of the wallet contains a very nice self-retracting pull tab used to extract the cards or banknotes in the center pocket.

When I received the SZNS wallet, I took some pictures of it while it was empty. Then after having inserted all my cards and money into the wallet, I noticed a 5 mm slit in the leather above the logo that I don’t think was there before inserting my cards. It was such a clean cut that it was difficult to see, but it was there. I’m not sure how it happened since I hadn’t even started using the wallet yet – I only inserted my cards and money. However, Mr. Amir Sigari, the co-creator of the SZNS wallets with his mother, was very courteous and very quickly sent out a new wallet. They offer free returns on wallets with defects and will exchange it or give you a full refund. They also offer a two-year warranty on this wallet

Leather: The wallet is made of semi-aniline leather. What is that? Pure or full aniline leather is a full grain leather that has been dyed throughout and “has not received any coating of pigmented finish” (By the way, you want full grain leather as opposed to top grain, genuine leather, or bonded leather). Semi-aniline leather is also a full grain leather that has been dyed throughout like aniline leather, however, semi-aniline leather additionally has a “small quantity of pigment, not so much as to conceal the natural characteristics of the hide” (from leatherusa.org) which gives it a more consistent look, protects the leather from some stains, and makes it more durable. Since this wallet has a small amount of pigment on the surface, it will not develop a patina like full aniline leather wallets.

Thread: The thread used in this wallet is a thin a cotton/nylon thread. Although, according to Mr. Sigari, they intend on increasing the size of the thread in the future.

Lining: Each of the three pockets of the wallet is lined with a satin-like lining that incorporates RFID blocking. The above photo on the right shows how the center pocket has sewn into it a black elastic strap with a leather pull tab which extends through the top of the pocket to the back side of the wallet.

According to Mr. Sigari, “both the leather and the RFID blocking inner fabric are die cut by a large stamping machine, after that everything is done by hand.”

Size: The thickness of the wallet when it is empty is about 5 mm.

The wallet is about 4.25″ long (~11 cm). This is a good size to accommodate credit cards and especially business cards. 

When compared to the Benjamin Bott Chickadee leather wallet that I recently reviewed, the SZNS wallet is taller but about the same width. You can also tell the difference in the leathers and thread used, both of which are thicker in the Chickadee wallet.

Use

I placed two plastic cards in the front pocket and six cards (two plastic cards, 4 paper cards) in the center pocket. I also placed two plastic cards in the back pocket as well as some cash (two banknotes).

Extracting the cards from the center slot was easy with the self-retracting pull tab. It was also easy to extract the cards from the front and back of the wallet because they were exposed enough to do so. The wallet was tight when filled with all these cards/bills but not too tight to make extracting the contents really difficult and yet not too loose so that you would lose your money or cards.
When full, the wallet was a little less that 0.75 inches thick (or about 1.8 cm thick). The wallet fits well in my hand and comfortably carries everything that I need. It really does minimize the bulk of traditional wallets.

Final Thoughts

The SZNS Burnt Sienna wallet is a professional looking lightweight leather wallet. It has the benefit of having three pockets, each lined with RFID blocking material and is tall enough to accommodate business cards as well as credit cards and cash. I was able to insert all of my necessary cards without having to leave anything out (six plastic cards and four paper cards). The wallet was not too tight to make extracting the cards really difficult and yet not too loose so that I would lose cards or money. However, the wallet is made with very thin leather and thin cotton/nylon thread. In addition, the wallet has only a two-year warranty and it is my impression that the wallet may not last a lifetime.

When comparing the SZNS wallet to my two favorite wallets, the Benjamin Bott Chickadee wallet and the Garzini Essenziale Finestra wallet I find that I still prefer the other two. Even though the SZNS wallet has RFID blocking and a self-retracting pull tab, the Chickadee wallet is the best made and the most minimalistic of the three but I also love the design of the Garzini wallet for the accessibility of my cards and money.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by SZNS Apparel. Please visit their site for more info.

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Tagged: Wallets

SZNS Burnt Sienna wallet review originally appeared on on July 10, 2017 at 8:00 am.

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I became a fan of Trayvax after reviewing their Summit minimalist wallet. It remains one of my all-time favorite wallets because it has a simple design, it’s well made, and it only holds the essentials. But if you’re looking for a minimalist wallet that has a little more pizzazz to its rugged good looks, you need look no further than the Trayvax Contour wallet. I shouldn’t give away the ending at the beginning of the review, but this wallet has no problems earning my stamp of approval. 

What is it?

The Trayvax Contour wallet is rugged minimalist expandable wallet made of stainless steel and leather that has been designed and made in the USA.

Design and features

As I mentioned above, the frame of the Trayvax Contour wallet is made of CNC machined stainless steel. But Trayvax didn’t stop there, they also added a Titanium aluminum nitride (TiAlN) coating which gives the wallet a really cool look.

The purpose of the frame is to keep everything aligned and to hold the leather strap which is sandwiched between the 2-piece frame.

The top-grain oil stained leather strap is available in a variety of colors and two sizes. I was sent the Canyon Red original sized strap preinstalled.

It’s easy to replace or adjust the strap by using the included Torx wrench.

The frame also has a built-in bottle cap lifter which some people might consider a survival tool.

To load the wallet, you simply “unsnap” the leather strap from the adjustable clasp pin and slide in the stack of cards.

Most minimalist wallets can only hold cards. But the Trayvax Contour wallet isn’t like most minimalist wallets. The leather strap unfolds to reveal a cash pocket that can hold up to 10 folded bills.

Friction from the raw side of the leather helps to hold the folded stack of bills in place even when the leather strap is unsecured.

This wallet obviously is not going to be as slim as some card only style wallets, but it still works well as a front pocket wallet.

Extra bonus

The Trayvax Contour’s stainless steel frame does more than just look good, it also provides a good level of RFID protection.

Final thoughts

I’ve yet to see a Trayvax wallet that isn’t well made and the Contour doesn’t change that. This wallet is expensive at $159.99, but it’s one of those things that you’ll only need to buy once. It’s not going to fall apart. It’s built to last for decades and it’s only going to look and work better as it ages.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Trayvax. Please visit their site for more info and you can also check Amazon.

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Tagged: Wallets

Trayvax Contour wallet review originally appeared on on June 11, 2017 at 9:30 am.

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Writing this review really has been a journey for me. You see, I am someone who frequently loses small (and medium, and large) items with frightening regularity. This is why I rely on a scientifically proven system of “leaving things wherever I might be when I decided I no longer need them and hoping I can find them later.” No internal discipline seems to exist that I can summon forth to prevent me from leaving things in potentially unexpected places.

To combat this failing, I’ve taken to attaching tracking devices to the more important bits of tat that I might misplace, and it’s been a successful approach for the most part. Over the last couple of years, several companies have cropped up offering small, battery-powered devices that will help you to keep track of your bits and bobs. I’ve tried most of them, and I consider myself an expert, or at the very least, can say that I’ve spent dozens of hours looking for things that, ostensibly, should be beeping very loudly right now because I told it to in the damn app.

Today, I bring you the Woolet 2.0 from Woolet. According to Woolet (the company, not the wallet), the second version of their namesake product brings a louder buzzer, better protection for the internal electronics, and other, more minor improvements to the Woolet (the wallet, not the company) line.

The Woolet 2.0 looks nice, if unexciting. It features four credit card slots, each of which is intended to hold only one card at a time. A larger, fifth slot can hold an additional four cards. I, personally, had no issue putting two or even three cards in the slots designed for a single card, as they are generously sized, and lined well enough to ensure that cards slide in and out with ease. The Woolet also includes a flap covered pocket in the bill pocket that allows you to carry any number of things such as dental floss, a prophylactic*, a competitor’s product, some coins, or a very small book. For reasons that will become apparent, I found the small pocket very useful.

The Woolet Experience

This review has taken me a very long time to write. I’ve been trying to be sure I’m giving the Woolet a fair shake, though I’ve faced more than a couple hurdles. For starters, the Woolet arrives in a state somewhere between dead and vaguely charged. You need to get it on a QI charging pad to get it charged enough to pair with your phone or tablet. This is where the first issues became apparent.

I have a few QI chargers around the house, but wanted to use the Woolet supplied charger to ensure a thorough review of what was sent to me. The Woolet QI charger is best described as a beautiful mess.

I received my first Woolet QI charger – you can see where this is going – and used it for a few days, doing battery tests and giving it a good overall workout. I think leg day was too much for it, however, and it stopped working soon after testing it. I wasn’t terribly surprised when it died, either, as there is one glaring flaw in the design. The Woolet QI charger (pictured) is a chunky slab of leather with an embossed logo and beautiful stitching. What it lacks, though, is any true mechanical support for the micro USB port centered on one end. At some point, and during reasonably careful handling, the contacts on the Micro USB port were levered off their pads on the PCB, and the charger promptly stopped working. After requesting, and receiving a replacement charger, I set to seeing what was wrong with the first and got out my stitch ripper. Having several hundred (they’re sold in spools!) Micro USB ports handy, I desoldered and replaced the Micro USB port. This worked immediately. Once working, I purposefully put downward pressure on the cable and was able to easily peel it off the board. I’ve now tested three times, and it takes only 2.8lbs of pressure on an attached cable at two inches from the connection to break the USB port off the PCB. I can say at least that they appeared to have chosen a good PCB fabricator, as the traces have yet to pull off the board, despite multiple reflows!

I believe that, for $89, one should be able to expect a bit more durability than I’ve seen here. Given that there are dramatically cheaper QI charging options on Amazon, I’d recommend against the Woolet branded charger.

If the Woolet (the company, not the wallet) charger is not for me, how about the Woolet (the wallet this time) itself? I’ll skip to the point and say I’m not a fan. That said, neither is the Woolet. It’s a wallet.

The Woolet app is very simple, and while it provides some nice features, it doesn’t change the fact that the Woolet itself is not quite ready for prime time.

After installing the app, and charging the wallet, I followed the steps to pair the Woolet., and failed. I was unable to get it to pair the first dozen or so times I tried. Shortly before my patience ran out entirely, it paired. I named my Woolet in the app, and approximately 90 seconds later, I got a notification on my iPhone that I’d left my Woolet at home. Given that I was still at home, and that I hadn’t stood up, much less traveled outdoors, I was confused. I dismissed the notification, assuming it was a test or some one-off bug. A few minutes later, however, I received another notification, this time while the Woolet was nine inches from my phone. This drove me right back into the app, where I tapped the Help option and was immediately encouraged to set Quiet Zones, which tell the app to NOT lie about where your Woolet might or might not allegedly be so long as you remain in a particular area such as your home or office. I’m not surprised that this seems to be the first goal of the built-in help, as without the quiet zones, the Woolet can get a bit needy. I set the Woolet on my desk at work, two feet from my phone, and removed the quiet zone. Though the Woolet did not wander off, I received 4 notifications in four hours that I’d left it behind. This is more than a bit annoying.

One feature that the Woolet sports is the ability to make it play a little tune to help your search should you lose it. In theory, this is a tried and true technology, being found years before in products like Tile’s… Tile. Really, if car companies were as creative as tracker companies, I’d be driving the Acura Acura. The issue is that Woolet has a very, very puny buzzer, and one that’s under a couple layers of leather at that. I was frequently unable to hear it in a room if the air conditioner was going. This frustrated me to no end, as I’d committed to using the Woolet as my primary wallet for the duration of the review period. In an attempt to ensure that I didn’t lose my credit cards, I tucked a Tile Slim into the flapped pocket in my Woolet and tested it out. I was able to hear the Tile through the same amount of leather, and also with the PCB in the way from outside the room, with the door closed. That is, as far as I am concerned, almost all you need to know about which solution I’d prefer to trust with my valuables.

Conclusion 

In the end, I cannot recommend the Woolet 2.0 to anyone based on its performance over the last couple of months. I’ve watched others’ video reviews of the Woolet and have not been able to recreate the same, generally more positive results that they seem to have had. The reality remains that even if the constant false alarms weren’t an issue, the inaudibility of the buzzer really limits the Woolet’s value in my view. The Woolet is available now from Woolet.co, with models ranging from $109.00 to $149.00.

*Do not put prophylactics in your wallet. That’s liable to create surprises later.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Woolet. For more info visit their site.

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Tagged: Wallets

Woolet 2.0 wallet review originally appeared on on June 2, 2017 at 3:18 pm.

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In my quest to find a great minimalist leather wallet, I was given the opportunity to review a Benjamin Bott Design wallet called the Chickadee English Tan ultra minimalist leather wallet. When it arrived, it was love at first sight.

The wallet arrived in a drawstring bag to protect it from scratches during shipping. There was no other fancy packaging involved – all of the time, energy, and money goes into the product itself.

Design and Quality

Description: The Chickadee English Tan wallet is a 100% handmade (hand cut leather, hand sewn, etc.) item made in the USA in Gloucester, Massachusetts by Benjamin Bott Design Leather Goods. Benjamin Bott Cunningham is the proprietor and has been working full-time for the past four years making leather wallets, phone cases, and key fobs.

The Leather: One of the first things I noticed about the Chickadee wallet was the quality of the leather, its suppleness, and its beautiful color. The Chickadee wallet is made out of full grain English tan Dublin Horween leather (4.5 oz or 1.8 mm). The Horween Leather Company, a tannery located in Chicago, IL established in 1905, is well known for producing some of the finest leathers in the world. Dublin is a waxed version of the Horween Essex tanned leather. Horween describes the Essex tanned leather as a rich full grain top quality cowhide that is tanned with “the same liquor we use to tan shell cordovan [horsehide].” Even though this is a vegetable tanned leather, it is not as stiff because of Horween’s tanning process. The leather holds its shape, yet is soft and flexible enough to give a little to accommodate the cards you insert into the wallet.

The Design and Workmanship: The design and cut are clean, unpretentious, precise and gorgeous. The wallet is made up of two rectangular pieces of leather (one long piece, one short): the long rectangular piece is folded in half with the second piece inserted in between to create the two available wallet pockets.

The wallet was then hand stitched together with a short stitch length using 0.035” thick waxed polyester Olive Green thread along the right-hand side of the wallet (a saddle stitch). The stitching is very tight and really well done. The above photos show the saddle stitch from the front of the wallet (left photo), then from the back (right photo).

Along the lower edge of the wallet, a cross-stitch was used. The wallet comes in different thread colors: Turquoise, Royal Blue, Scarlet Red, Purple, Lark (looks like ivory), Seal (looks like black), Olive Green, Emerald Green, and Old Brown.

The burnished edges are beautifully polished and so even with each other that you cannot tell that there are three edges sewn together just by touching the edge. Wow.

I spoke to Mr. Cunningham about how he was able to obtain such a nice finish on the edges of the leather. To obtain the smooth polished appearance as shown in the photo above, he started with 100 grit sandpaper and worked his way down to 1000 grit sandpaper and finally treated it with saddle soap and water. The wallet is an amazing piece of craftsmanship – you can tell that a lot of time was invested in this beautiful leather product.

The Chickadee English tan wallet has two pockets. There are no additional materials used to line either of the pockets. The interior of the back pocket is raw leather. The back pocket also has a stamp with the Benjamin Bott Designs logo inside – the words “Benjamin Bott” are printed at the top, then below that is an image of a cow with “made in the USA” stamped underneath.

One of the sides of the interior of the front pocket is made of smooth finished leather while the other side is raw leather.

Size: The Chickadee wallet measures 9.5 cm L x ~6.7 cm W (3.75″ L x 2.75″ W) When the wallet is empty, it is approximately 0.25″ or a little over 0.5 cm thick. The wallet is made from 4.5 oz. leather which is about 1.8 mm thick. Mr. Cunningham informed me that if it were made with thinner leather, over time the leather would break down from use thus limiting the length of time that you would be able to use such a wallet.

Comparing the Chickadee English tan wallet to my Garzini wallet shows you the difference in size. The Chickadee is definitely more minimalistic. You can also see the differences in the thickness of the types of thread used and the leather quality. The Horween Dublin leather really catches your eye thus making the Chickadee wallet stand out.

The wallet is indeed a very nice size and fits comfortably in my hand.

Use

The wallet is capable of holding 3-4 cards and some cash according to the Benjamin Bott Design website. As you can see, it is indeed capable of carrying four plastic cards in the front pocket and four paper cards and two five dollar bills in the back pocket.

When full, the wallet is about 5/8″ or a little over 2 cm thick. If you carry less than this, it will obviously be thinner.

I have been using this wallet for almost two weeks now, and have only grown more impressed with it over time. My only concern was that the exposed cross-stitched thread along the bottom of the wallet might wear out over time, but Mr. Cunningham is confident in the stitching quality and has thus offered a lifetime warranty to cover the stitching (and the wallet as a whole) should it become an issue.

Final Thoughts

The Benjamin Bott Design Chickadee English Tan ultra minimalist leather wallet is by far the best made, highest quality, and in my opinion, most attractive minimalist leather wallet that I have reviewed to date. It is made using world renowned Horween leather (Dublin English tan) and thick waxed polyester thread. It is extremely well made and I expect that it will last a lifetime (the stitching and the wallet have a lifetime warranty). It is $60 but well worth the price. It holds my basic needs (4 plastic cards, 4 paper cards, and a couple of dollar bills) and I absolutely love it. I will be using it every day – perhaps on some days, just to gaze at its beauty.

Source: The sample used in this review was provided by Benjamin Bott Design Leather Goods. Please visit his website for more information or to purchase one.

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Tagged: Wallets

Benjamin Bott Design Chickadee English Tan ultra minimalist wallet review originally appeared on on May 15, 2017 at 9:50 am.

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