Guest Post - Lefax Pocket Size.

Thank you to Nifty from Notebook Stories for this post. 

In going through some the old supplies in my Filofax collection, I came across this packet of Lefax branded inserts. It made me curious about what sorts of pocket size organizers Lefax offered... but when I started digging into it, I couldn't find a single trace of Lefax pocket size organizers or inserts anywhere on the internet!

As Philofaxy readers will know, Lefax was actually the original Filofax-- the history is that they were an American company that started making ring-bound organizers in 1910. These were mainly used as handbooks of technical information-- you can see some examples in this eBay listing and in this Philofaxy post. 

A British company called Norman & Hill started importing them in 1921, but then started selling their own organizers under the name Filofax. This may be why Lefax registered their trademark in 1926. Filofax registered their trademark in 1930, and the two companies co-existed until 1992 when Filofax bought Lefax. They used the name for a few years but eventually phased it out.

(Sad but sort of amusing: Lefax is now the trademarked name of a German pharmaceutical product intended to alleviate flatulence.)

Philofaxy's archive has a few old Lefax catalogs, but they only show the standard "personal" size organizers and inserts (95mm x 171mm page size) -- the only exception was something called the Lefax Soho, which was a small square format with only 3 rings-- as if you'd sawed a personal size organizer in half. It would not have been compatible with my inserts.

My Lefax insert packet contains the "One Cash Column" insert, with the reference number P5001 and the copyright date 1987. Philofaxy's 1988 Lefax catalog lists all their inserts including a regular "personal" size one cash column insert with ref #5001-- so it looks like "P" would be added to model numbers to indicate the pocket size version.

My inserts have hole punching to match both 4 and 6 ring pocket organizers. This is interesting because Filofax didn't start selling 6-ring pocket organizers until 1994. The 4-ring pattern allowed inserts to fit the 4 inner rings of larger personal organizers, but why would Lefax bother to make a smaller sheet if they didn't make smaller organizers? Did Lefax try to sell inserts for other brands of pocket looseleaf notebooks, and that's why it was 6-hole compatible before Filofax's own inserts were?

My Lefax inserts still have the sticker from when I bought them at a Rizzoli Bookstore in the early 1990s. It was probably about a year after the Filofax/Lefax merge, as the number "9311" appears on the sticker, which I think means the product was received in November 1993. The store seems to have labeled it as being the corresponding Filofax insert, so perhaps all the Lefax inventory was being absorbed into the rest of the stock at the company's warehouse, and they shipped this mixed in with Filofax branded inserts, intentionally or by accident.

The label also shows a number FKP420302. 420302 was probably the reference number used by Filofax for a pocket size single cash column insert. But although the 1993 catalog at Philofaxy and 1992 catalog show Journal Single Cash with reference numbers ending in 302 for Personal and Deskfax sizes, they don't show any availability of a pocket size version. 

Within a few years, the single cash journal seems to have been phased out and only a double-column cash journal insert was sold until sometime between 2007 and 2010, when it stopped appearing in the catalogs. I couldn't find any mention anywhere of Filofax ever having offered a pocket size single cash journal insert-- the closest thing would have been an Expenses insert, #210605. I know Filofax's catalogs are not always 100% accurate vs. the actual products that were in the market at the time, but this makes me wonder if they just made up the reference number 420302 when they realized they had some existing Lefax inventory they had to deal with fitting into their product offerings?

I'm left with a mystery: did Lefax ever make pocket size organizers? If so, what happened to them? Why didn't their catalogs list any pocket size inserts? Why aren't there more references to them that have trickled down into today's wealth of images and data on the internet? I'm hoping someone out there in the Philofaxy community will read this and have their own pocket size Lefax show and tell to share with us!

Thank you Nifty, if you can shine some light on this Lefax Pocket size mystery, please leave a comment below. 

And thanks again to Nifty from Notebook Stories for their contribution to Philofaxy.