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20 April 2023

Rare But Nobody Cares!

'Rare but nobody cares' is an idea or phrase I've borrowed from the car enthusiasts world and possibly others as well. 

In car terms it is a car that was in full production, you would see lots of them on the road, yet once out of production they would literally vanish in to thin air and within 15-20 years only a handful of them would remain roadworthy and in regular use. There's even a website that lets you look at how many UK cars are still licensed for each model of car! 

To give an example, I owned a Rover 216 GTi back in the 1990's over twelve thousand were registered in 1995, now it's less than 25 cars that are still on the road! 

If we transfer this idea to Filofax, think back to some of the models that were in mass production, but if you were to see one today that was still as new, unused, then you wouldn't really be that bothered about it. 

It would be a model that you never see someone showing off on Instagram, may be one that people would often admit 'I had one of those once' but they had since moved on from. 

Why no one cares? The reasons can be one of the following:

  • Too fashionable, so short lived in terms of being relevant, colours and styling. 
  • They didn't wear well with everyday use, hence why they became rare quickly once out of production.
  • They were cheap and not considered a serious organiser. 
There are other categories such as 'Popular and still popular' these would be models that have had a relatively long production run with some small design alternations and colour variations over their long production run, two models that fall in this category are the Finsbury and the Malden. Both have been in production for over 10 years. The Finsbury nearly 20 years. 

I also think that there are some models that are 'More popular now than when they were on sale' these might be ones that were predominantly sold in the mid 1990's when sales started to dip because electronic organisers started to come in to vogue. Models such as the Cavendish and Kensington. 

What category does your favourite model fall in to? 


4 comments:

  1. 'More popular now than when they were on sale' - my faithful & favourite personal Kensington, which I first purchased in 2014. The layout is perfect for me & the leather just gets better with more use.

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  2. I haven't been in the Filofax world too many years. I have a personal size that I keep important info in and a Malden pocket that I carry daily. I do love all the pockets that Malden has so it will probably be with me for as long as the leather holds up.

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  3. My main Filofax is a circa 20 year old A5 Bridle in black, which also seems to be quite rare.

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  4. One good aspect of liking a rarity that lacks widespread appeal is being able to obtain something you appreciate at relatively little cost.

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