We have covered what is 'Vintage' before and it recently resurfaced on one of the Facebook groups after Neil published his recent video on the topic: What exactly is a vintage Filofax? // Flatability
There is no definitive definition of Vintage and how it applies to Filofax, people have their own opinions I know, is it a particular age or before a particular year or whatever.
However, what about 'Rare' what defines that?
The one problem I have with that definition is who decides how many have to be made before it is no longer 'rare' ??
Some adverts seem to declare something as 'rare' if you don't often see them up for sale. To give an example, the Filofax Eton doesn't often pop up for sale on Ebay these days, so is it rare? I guess not hundreds of them would have been made in an overseas factory somewhere in the world in the early 2000's so not vintage either!
Do I have any 'Rare' Filofax organisers? I do have an Eton Compact, which I consider to be 'rare' because it never made it in to full production and what I have is a production sample/prototype that escaped in to the open market.
I suspect it didn't make it in to production because the PDA organisers that it was intended to carry were changing in design so fast. I'm just lucky that I still have a Psion 5MX that this design was intended to carry!.
Read about the Eton Compact here. After doing some further research it turns out that there would have been no more than 10 of these made and they were sent to the different Filofax distributors to assess their sales potential.
The other model I have in my collection that is considered by some people is the Journey Travel Companion Organiser.
This model is from 2013 and I was told by someone at Filofax UK that they only made sixty of these.
So rare or made in limited numbers?
There have been other limited production runs by Filofax through out the years. Some didn't sell as well as others.
What do you consider to be 'Rare' when it comes to Filofax organisers? And do you own any rare ones?
I’d say that rarity can come about in several ways - either not many of something ever existed, or not many survived over time, or the opportunity to actually acquire one is limited.
ReplyDeleteWhat qualifies is going to be subjective. I would include cases where I’ve never seen an item or only a handful have come to market over many years.
I’ve got a duplex vinyl Filofax that’s the only example I’ve ever come across - not likely to be hugely valuable but certainly rare.
I agree.
DeleteI think that for Filofaxes that weren't made that long or were produced in smaller quantities, you would need to know roughly how many are still in existence.
Because unlike, for example, coins made of precious metals, which practically everyone knows that they have a value, it looks very different with ring binders and some of them may have simply been thrown away.
I own a Winchester with gusseted pockets on both sides - this version doesn't seem to be very well known at least.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find out whether this version was a special model or whether it was always produced in this way for a certain period of time (how long exactly?).
I also have a Connaught that was only made in 1998 and 1999 (how long exactly?), so in a fairly short period of time.
But are they perhaps already considered rare (Wikipedia defines rare as less than about 1% of the total)?
You would have to know how many still exist - and that shouldn't be easy with many models.
Please excuse my English.
Nothing rare. I did purchase an unused DK Cash-Coin Insert in Red. No marks or distortion in the ring holes and body. I missed out purchasing a great condition companion, an original, with its rings and popper intact. As well, the unused red card insert . The opportunity to purchase vintage items in superb condition. Now that is Rare. -Jessie
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