Recently some of these M2 organisers have been appearing on Ebay, some I must say at higher prices than I was prepared to pay. But with thanks to Tracy, she spotted one going for £15 plus postage, but they would only post to UK, so Tracy kindly offered to purchase it on my behalf and bring it along to the meet up in London.
So here it is the Filofax Cross M2 in a very light shade of blue, may be not a very manly colour I will agree, but it is the same colour as a lot of shirts I wear, so I find it an acceptable colour.
The organiser is in quite good condition, the leather has some tiny cracks in the surface on the clasp, but you need to use a magnifier to see them. The stitching is all in tact. The only thing I found odd about it was the smell of the interior, slightly musty as if it had been stored for some time.
After cleaning the leather the smell was still there so I soaked some kitchen paper towel in some liquid fabric refreshener (Febreze). then I put that in the long back pocket and left it over night. It hasn't totally gone but it is a lot better than it was at first.
The M2 organisers are no longer sold by Filofax, but they still sell inserts for this size. The paper size is 64 x 103 mm similar to Mini which is 105 x 67 mm, the main difference is that the M2 is in landscape format rather than the usual portrait format. With a page width of 103 mm the M2 is slightly wider than Filofax Personal size (95mm) so there is plenty of width to write in.
As you can see it only has three rings, but they are the conventional 19mm (¾") apart, so existing Filofax punches all work just fine.
Rather than buy inserts for the M2 I set about creating some of my own, to start with I've just done some ToDo lists and some lined paper. Ideal for shopping lists and the like.
The Cross does have the full length back pocket and three card slots in the front inside cover. There is also a full height pocket behind the card slots for stamps and may be other less frequently used cards. In the back inside cover there is a zipped coin pocket which has an elasticated gusset at one end, which is quite a neat design feature. Below this pocket there is a horizontal leather pen loop, which takes my Filofax Mini pen quite nicely.
It is another addition to my growing collection!!
I've created some templates for the M2:
This is so cute! I wonder how are the original inserts for that model?!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I like it a lot, even the baby blue color. :)
I can see that this would be ideal if you didn't have loads to keep in your binder, used a very small bag, or wanted to use it as a wallet. I'm guessing they discontinued as there just wasn't enough demand.
ReplyDeletePersonally I would prefer this to a mini as the pages look much easier to write on.
Looks like it would work as a wallet, more functional, better design that the M2 Balmoral I got which has neither the full-length pocket nor the coin slot. I'll be letting that go soon as I can't find a use for it. Good score!
ReplyDeleteI think it was discontinued because Mulberry came out with something similar but with the rings at the top but still on the short side so it was more a flip type pocket book. Mulberry still have these I think...
ReplyDeleteThe inserts you can still get from Filofax are here:
http://www.filofax.co.uk/search/search.asp?search_string=m2
Even a diary!
And M2 still appears in the drop-down menus on the Filofax site....yet Compact doesn't!
Steve
Don't get me started on the Filofax website. I've never seen such a badly organised and maintained site. I have no idea why they make it so difficult for customers to find the things they want to buy!
DeleteThere's one in the Filofax section of the Karstadt store in Freiburg (in Breisgau, Germany) and I have a look at it each time I go there (which is often). It's been there for ages, it would seem, but no sign of discoloration/wear/cracks/whatever.
ReplyDeleteIts color is... mustard ? beige ? light tan ? I don't know the name of the colour but it does look nice and would make a very nice and classy/manly (but minimalist) wallet : 3 card slots, a small diary and lots of paper note or to-do/to-buy list.
But the price is 65 euros... So, I never purchased it.
The only drawback I see: the diary is multi-language, therefore, there'es *really* not a lot of room for each day; but of course, if you don't have that many appointment and if you use this as a diary/planner, and not full-blown-organizations-your-whole-life-in-your-filo-method, then it's close to perfection : much more functional than pocket, I think.
And the A-Z tabs are really fragile, the paper seems really less sturdy than other formats.
Thank you for your review, these are the kind of filo one never sees on Filofax-blogs (way too many maldens and the like, imho :)) and now I want one too :)
Not sure if this would work, but you could try putting it in a box next to a small container of baking soda. I have found this helps a lot of times to take thr strange odor off of things. Great find!
ReplyDeleteJust spotted the Boston Jot Pad holder... no rings but very similar in size to the M2 I would think
ReplyDeletehttp://www.filofax.co.uk/store/businessdetails.asp?catId=6&productId=569
Steve
I am so crazy about the color I can't stand it! :)
ReplyDelete