Filofax Malden Wallet to Filofax M2

I've been using a Filofax Malden wallet for a couple years now, it's quite compact.

and the inside is quite nicely organised too

It has a coin pocket on the right and card slots on the left and this card slot section hinges to reveal two mesh pockets .

It also has other pockets including one on the outside and two full width pockets for bank notes. All very nice, but it doesn't have any rings I hear you say.... this is true... 

So with the contents of my wallet emptied on to the desk, step forward my latest find from Ebay... It was described as a 'Filofax Wallet' but you and I both know that it is in fact a Filofax Portabello M2 organiser. 

Seen here with my 'baby blue' Cross M2 you can read my post about that one here. 

They are quite different in their internal layouts, so for the purpose of comparison here is the inside of the Cross M2. 

It has a full width wallet pocket at the back as you would expect. On the left hand side there are the three card slots, on the right there is a gusseted pocket for coins, and a horizontal pen loop at the bottom. There's also a full height pocket behind the card slots. I've used this organiser in the past as a notebook it slips in a shirt pocket neatly and works quite well in that role. 

So moving on to the Portabello. 

So again it has the full width wallet pocket at the back. But there's no coin pocket, no pen loop either. Instead you have 6 card slots in total, these are equally split between the front and back with full height pockets on each one.

In both cases a set of 11 mm rings. Just to refresh your memory. M2 format is 103mm by 64 mm in landscape format, it is similar in size to the current Mini size which is 67 mm by 105mm, but that is the traditional portrait format with 5 rings, M2 as you can see is just 3 rings, but they are the normal 19mm spacing so any punch will work.

So moving swiftly along to. I put in my cards, and other bits of paperwork, along with my 'pocket paper money'

That all fitted in nice and easily.

I then added some plain and quadrille paper

I would use the pages for jotting notes down, shopping lists, noting down shop opening hours, model numbers etc The usual stuff when you are out shopping.

The next issue was coins... no coin pocket on this particular model, but I'm not so easily beaten.

In our collection of stationery I found this plastic holder, it is the right size and with a little bit of trimming to make the tab slot in neatly and three holes punched in it I have a coin holder.

I try not to carry too many coins, even in my Malden wallet it made it too heavy and slightly unbalanced. So this small number of coins will do me for most things to cover things like postage and the car wash.

I then had a look as to how to carry a pen easily. Not essential but it would be useful to have.

The Mini Filofax Pen I have I found you can slot the clip in to one of the full height pockets and that seems to hold it there well enough, or I could add a self-adhesive pen loop to the coin pocket.

Overall the is not much size difference between the Malden wallet and the M2, but the M2 has the added advantage of being able to hold paper as well for note taking.

I'm very pleased with the result, it's still quite compact in thickness too. As expected the coins are the bit that add bulk to the set up. This set up will mean I don't need to carry a small notebook as well as my wallet.

A big thank you Jane who spotted this M2 for sale, being described as a Filofax Wallet resulted in no other bidders and I got it for the starting bid price. So it pays to alter your search terms if you are looking for an M2.