The Filofax Malden first appeared back in 2010 initially in only Pocket and Personal size. A5 and Mini were soon added in 2011. There were also other sizes and variants of the Malden organiser line up as well as various accessories too numerous to mention here.
About a year ago we caught sight of the reintroduction of the Malden Mini and one of the colours shown was a Navy Blue leather, recently this colour was released across all of the current Malden organiser sizes, Mini, Pocket, Personal and A5.
Filofax have kindly sent me an A5 to review and here it is.
It terms of the shade of blue the Navy Blue Malden is between my Dark Blue Gillio and a lighter blue Custom Van der Spek.
The design is the same as the very first A5 Malden organisers, why change it if it is so popular?
The Navy Blue Malden retains the instantly recognisable contrast stitching detail around the clasp and the edging of the organiser.
The inside front cover of the Malden A5 has a variety of pockets including two full height vertical slip pockets, the shallower of the two is behind a full height vertical zip pocket. There are also four vertical card pockets. There is a non-elasticated pen loop on the inside edge.
The Malden A5 is fitted with 30mm rings, like previous editions the rings are riveted in to the organiser securely.
The rear inside cover has a notepad pocket that can take an A5 writing pad or any A5 or folded A4 papers. There is also another non-elasticated pen loop.
The Malden A5 has been released in a variety of colours over the years. I have just three of them Grey, Ochre and now the Navy Blue.
- cotton cream week on two pages diary,
- ruler/page marker,
- to do,
- contacts,
- indices,
- notepaper.
Out of curiosity I weighed these three Malden A5 organisers and discovered this:
- Grey Malden - 328 grams
- Navy Blue Malden - 330 grams
- Ochre Malden - 337 grams
All three were empty, nothing in any of the pockets, the scales are accurate to within ∓1 gram. So why the Ochre one is that much heavier I don't know. Of the three it is the most 'floppy' and soft.
May be there is some difference in the thickness of the leather. A small difference over the size of an A5 organiser would possibly account for that sort of variation.
For those of you that like decoding the Quality Control codes, the same three organisers are:
- Grey Malden - SCW
- Navy Blue Malden - LHF
- Ochre Malden - SCW
You can find the code generally on the inside of the clasp stamped in to the leather close to the organiser. The three letters indicate the Year, Month and location of manufacturer of the item.
Overall, I'm pleased to see this new colour available across the range and for the chance to review it. Once again thank you Filofax UK for supplying this review sample.
For full details on the Malden range please visit the Filofax website.
Steve - I’m not a Malden user but there have been a lot of comments that modern models are not as “soft, squishy and buttery“ as earlier ones. The same applies to the Holborn. I believe that this change came when manufacture was shifted from China to other Asian countries such as India and Vietnam. Does your sample Malden state country of manufacture and how would you rate is on the “buttery” scale?
ReplyDeleteYes it states "Made in China" on the box it came in. And it's like butter you have just taken out of the fridge! Quite a bit 'stiffer' than my Ochre one, but that one has been 'rolled' a few times and treated with leather care balm a few times to mask the finger marks.
DeleteMaybe the leather care balm makes the Ochre one heavier. Just a thought. How deep is the zipper pocket on the A5 Malden?
DeleteThe pocket measures 85mm deep and the zipper is 195mm in length when open, the pocket itself is slightly longer than that at about 215mm
DeleteI really like this colour...might have to get the pocket size for my collection.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the review Steve. The colour looks stunning and very glad to hear that it seems to have all the things we love about the Malden.
ReplyDeleteLove the contrasting stitching, like a very best pair of denim jeans!! xx
ReplyDeleteMalden is my favorite <3
ReplyDeleteI have an ochre Malden in A5. The rings are spaced differently to my personal Malden (fuchsia). It’s really annoying me, it’s really inconvenient. I wasn’t expecting it.
ReplyDelete