Lefax City slimline

For quite some time now, I haven't had a look on eBay for Filofaxes, but for some reason fancied having a little nose around recently. I do think that in general the prices seem higher than they used to be, but there are still bargains to be had. When I bid, I just set my maximum amount and don't tend to watch the end of the auction, so that I'm not tempted to go above the budget that I have set myself. 

In the past, I've owned a number of slimlines, but sold them all when I decided to stick with just personal size for a number of years. However, I admit that I may have regretted slightly doing this as it can be quite a handy size for popping in your bag or a larger coat pocket. Due to COVID, our household is still mostly staying put, so I won't be travelling anywhere for some time to come, but I do think that a slimline can be very useful for simplifying or for planning a particular project. 

Therefore, I was interested when I came across a Lefax City in a wonderful condition and a colour that I haven't seen before. I put in one bid and was delighted when I got the message announcing that I'd won!

As you can see, apart from a couple of minor ink stains, it's in beautiful condition for its age. The seller said that they purchased it from the Lefax shop in Covent Garden, London, in the early 1980s. It's not very clear in my photo, but on the front cover it says 'LEFAX City, Made in England, CITY 10 SP/6', with the 10 referring to its 10mm rings.  

More information, thanks to the Lefax catalogue kindly uploaded on Philofaxy (you can view the full catalogue here). On the right hand side, it says 'Lefax Event', but I'm not sure what the Event part signifies as a previous burgundy City that I owned also had this on the inside cover. 

As per the catalogue details above, the City was available in black, burgundy, navy, red, brown and grey, but this one certainly isn't one of those colours. As I don't know much about Lefax binders, I reached out to our hugely knowledgeable reader community and this was Brenda's reply - 'I haven’t seen this colour before in LeFax, either! It’s intriguing. This looks like an older luxe model, with the gold leaf logo, etc. It’s sort of a blush or white based beige dye'.

So, if anyone reading this post has come across this colour in a Lefax and may know what it's called, I'd be interested to know more. 

The French goatskin leather is very soft to the touch and has a beautiful sheen to it. 

Like many of the older slimlines, you don't get a pen loop, so I put my thinking cap on about what I could use around the house. At first, I considered removing an adhesive Leuchtturm pen loop from an old project book, but then wondered if I could instead use one of my magnetic Oli Clips.

I think that the colour of this Paper Mate nicely matches and the metal clip attaches quite securely to the clip. I'm not sure if the pen might get knocked off if you were carrying it in a bag, but it works quite well for use within the house. 

Here are some shots next to my personal Kensington, which shows just how svelte the Lefax is:

After doing One Book July in my Kensington, I have moved back into my A5 Original for work and I am considering using the Lefax as my main binder for a change. I will write another post when I've figured out my set up, but it will be as simple as possible, without the use of dividers as they will take up valuable ring space.