Filofax Cavendish Personal

I recently bought this Cavendish personal size organiser from one of our readers. Whilst I saw plenty of photographs of it that she kindly sent me before agreeing to buy it, I didn't really take much notice of the internal design of it. I was obviously looking for faults with the rings or damage to the leather, which thankfully there were none.

However, when I opened the parcel last week and took this organiser out of the box and started to look at it, I suddenly started to appreciate why this particular model is so popular with people that are fortunate to own one.

To me there are so many good things with the way it's been designed and made.

The exterior is quite understated in some ways. The leather is soft to the touch and the clasp of the older type designs. I am not sure when this particular model stopped being sold, the box had hints of 2005 on it, gosh 9 years ago!

Opening up the organiser and you will see the immediate attraction for most people, 30mm rings and on this example they snapped perfectly shut.

On the left inside front cover there is a large pen loop, which takes my Cross fountain pen comfortably. And eight... card slots.. I've put Philofaxy cards in them just so they all show up! There's also a full height pocket to tuck things in to behind the card slots.

The inside back cover on the right has another full height tuck in pocket and also a slim secretarial pocket in front of that. With a smaller pen loop as well. This one will take a 0.5 Frixion pen with out too much of a problem.

On the back cover there is a zip pocket, it's quite tall but not very deep, but you are less likely to lose things in the depths of a deeper pocket I guess. This would be fine for tickets and may be for collected business cards. The zip is covered by some thin leather flaps which is a neat touch.

So in use, as you can see it takes all of my usual pages without any problems at all. Capacity to spare in fact. It feels special in a way, luxurious but without feeling fragile. Plenty of secure pockets for things like my passport and prescriptions etc. Card storage well beyond what I will need! I just like the simplicity of the design, no zips on the inside to create unwanted 'lumps' to write against.

The organiser doesn't sit perfectly flat when empty as you can see. But I guess over time it might loosen up a bit, it's certainly ok with pages in it and fine when you are holding it in your hand which is the norm for a personal size for me.

Although this has got 30 mm rings it doesn't feel that bulky. Clearly if you loaded the rings fully up with paper then the weight would increase.

The Cavendish is shown here between the Gillo Amica and the Launer, the Amica has 26mm rings, The Launer the same as the Cavendish with 30mm rings. The other two though are very square at the spine where as the Cavendish is quite rounded, I wonder if that is why it doesn't feel quite as bulky.

This one is certainly in my top ten of Filofax designs and I'm proud to be the owner of one.