Thank you once again for another guest post from Hans, this time delving deeper in to different A5 ring formats.
Below are four A5 Organisers.
Although they are ring binders designed to hold standard A5 sheets of 210x148mm, you'll be surprised to see what's inside.
Top left: This is considered to be the "Standard" A5 ring spacing with two groups of three rings with 2.3/4" (~70mm) center spacing.
Top right: The alternative 6-Ring "Personal" ring spacing of 2" (~51mm) center spacing as for Personal Organisers. The inserts are punched to match both spacings.
Bottom left: The German(?) A5 4-Ring standard with 45 + 65 + 45mm ring spacing.
Bottom right: The Japanese ring spacing standard of 9.5mm, 20 Rings for A5.
Below is an example for a Standard A5 Organiser.
If you look at the plate between the push-buttons, you can see that the center gap is about twice the top or bottom gap.
Below is an example for a "Personal" spaced A5 Organiser.
If you look at the plate between the push-buttons, you can see that the center gap is about the same as the top or bottom gap.
The well known companies using this spacing are Mulberry, Quo Vadis and Tempus.
Below is an Organiser using the German A5 4-Ring Standard.
The 4-Ring standard is very popular for small volume A5 binders, mostly for address or phone registers. It is also used for large-volume (2-3") binders, mostly for stamp and coin collecting purposes.
The use for Organisers is less known. I am very impressed about the rich features and the manufacturing quality, including Krause rings.
Below is an example for a Japanese Standard A5 ring binder.
The Japanese Multi-Ring Standard is based on a pitch of exactly 9.5mm. The regular ring binders in portrait orientation use an even count of rings, keeping a solid margin to the edge. This leads to a standard count of 20 rings and holes for A5. However, for Zip-Bind using plastic spines that can be cut to any length, a count of 22 rings can be used as well. Paper punched with 22 holes will fit 20-Ring binders, but not vice-versa.
Other popular ring counts with this standard are 26 for JIS-B5 and 30 for ISO-A4.
Landscape or square formats usually use an odd ring count, sometimes skipping one or two ring positions. A popular variant are 3-Ring Organisers with 28.5mm ring spacing, omitting two positions. These were originally designed for 80x80mm inserts, but there are portrait formats of 80x60mm and 80x44mm available. The latter are available as Miniature-Malden Lookalikes, but the 20mm diameter rings create a very strange look.
The Japanese pitch is exactly 9.50mm, not 3/8" (9.525mm). But two units of 19.0mm are very close to the 3/4" (19.05mm) Organiser ring spacing. Punched paper will fit for Mini, Pocket and A6 (1.1/2" center spacing) format, if the paper is aligned accordingly. Larger formats use a 1/4" pitch center spacing, making them incompatible with the almost 3/8" pitch.
Here are my questions:
- Who is the originator of the Personal spaced A5 rings, and why? Mulberry, Quo Vadis, Tempus? Are there any other companies using this spacing?
- Does anyone know what DIN or ISO standard that German 4-Ring standard is? It must be from the 1960s or earlier. I only see it referenced as "45-65-45".
- The "System" brand Organiser is very impressive. Does anyone know anything about the brand/manufacturer of this "System" binder? A Google search is pointless for obvious reasons.
I'd be happy about any kind information. And as usual: Feel free to comment or ask, if you want to know more about the ring binders or their ring spacings.
Hans
I don’t know if it ‘invented’ ‘Personal spacing’ for A5, but Time Manager (TMI) launched in 1975 and was hugely successful for many years. I recall it claimed to have three million daily users worldwide in the 1980s. Its A5 organisers had four ring mechanisms spaced as ‘personal’. The logic was that as well as A5, it’s standard pages (180mm x 110mm) and smaller notepad sheets could all be used in their A5 desk binders.
ReplyDeleteHi Tim,
DeleteThanks for the information. Being able to use smaller sheets in lager binders is a good feature. Combo punching can be a solution, but it can also look a bit ugly, like for the top/right example.
I'll do some investigation regarding TMI. First Google searches already revealed some of your guest posts here.
Hans
Can't help with any answers to the questions, but I can also throw a couple more A5 ring setups into the mix...
ReplyDeleteI have a 2-ring binder, with spacing 80mm, presumably echoing the A4 4-hole metric spacing, and giving 65mm above and below the rings to the paper edge. The mechanism is by Bensons, now part of the Ring Alliance, with Krause and Koloman-Händler.
I also have a 3-ring binder, which has 70mm spacing; a 'Slant-D' binder, with an unusual ring design, with a straight, slanted edge on the right hand side.
The Japanese binder you featured is likely to be 3/8" spacing (so 9.525mm), in the same way that Personal is 3/4" and 2", and 3/4" used for many related rings; Pocket, Mini, M2, A6.
The unit of measure often becomes the unit of _design_.
The Slant-D ring spacing will be 2 3/4", too; so close to 70mm as to be barely discernible by eye and ruler first thing in the morning...
DeleteHi Kevin,
DeleteThanks for your annotations. I wanted to differentiate between general Filebinders and dedicated Organisers for true A5 paper. The 2-Ring 80mm standard is a generic filebinder standard used for various metric formats. The 3-Ring US formats of 2.3/4" or 4.1/4" are filebinder standards for Half-Letter and Letter formats. The two 7-Ring Organizer formats are derived from these.
Besides the 7-Ring Half-Letter format (same as the regular Jeppesen Airway Manuals), there are other formats similar to A5. Like the French 5-Ring 35mm pitch used by "Agenda Moderne" (Thanks to Steve for the information about this), or the 6-Ring 30mm pitch "Family Book" standard, where the ring binders are of A5 size, and the inserts 200x130mm.
Regarding the Japanese standard, this is defnitely 9.50mm. Along the 29 gaps for A4, the difference to 3/8" would be a "huge" 0.725mm difference. I have different brands and ring sizes here, and all of them align to mm marks, not binary fractions of inches.
An example of intended oddities is the 4:1 pitch in spiral coil binding. The actual pitches in use are 0.248" or 0.2475" instead of exact 0.250". This is to avoid thin edge margins with imperial paper sizes aligned to fractions of inches. On 11" or 8.5" paper, the exact 4:1 pitch with 4.0mm or 5/32" holes would leave a tiny 1.175 to 1.19mm top and bottom margin. Reducing the pitch a tiny bit increases these margins.
Hans
Thanks for the clarification. I guess it's either a 'metrification' of an imperial measure, or some fractional use to avoid edge issues as you describe. Whilst, as I observed, the units you chose can influence the design, with high resolution measurement tools, there's no reason the values used in a design need be anything other than arbitrary, determined purely by functional requirements.
DeleteThe 45<>65<>45mm spacing has featured on here in the past. I've often found them listed as European A5 and sold as conference binders and address books.
ReplyDeleteRhodia A5+ has it: https://philofaxy.blogspot.com/2019/09/rhodia-a5-notebook.html
Gillio Address Book https://philofaxy.blogspot.com/2017/12/gillio-a5-address-book.html
Hi Steve,
DeleteThanks for the links.
That Rhodia notebook is a typical example of a "scratch" notebook with pre-punched tear-off pages. Having the right tools, it would be possible to DIY such a notebook. However, mass-perforation of paper is not an easy job. Some time ago I tried to find out whether there would be tools to create a mirco-performation, but without luck.
That Gillio address book looks great, fully crafted interior, and a ring mechanics with push-buttons.
The address/phone registers I found use simple ring mechanics without tabs. The rings have to be pulled open manually in pairs.
But I think that 4-Ring format is not that popular these days? Pre-punched paper with circular holes is easy to make in an industral environment, so it is a simple way for the manufacturers to give some benefit to their A5 paper products. Tools for slotted punches are far more expensive.
Hans
Some more notes about that "System" brand and their ring binders.
ReplyDeleteTwo days before the guest post was published, I found another System A5 4-Ring. Black, plain design, supposed to be Nappa leather.
And there were at least Personal sized organisers with standard 6-Ring mechanics available as well. The one I already have here is the very same design as the A5 shown above, but in black.
Today I found another Personal sized one. It looks like it's a fabric and leather combo. That one has a different logo on the outside, "system" in lower case typewriter style letters on a clothing label style fabric. The inserts on the photos of the listing show the old logo. However, Google Image Search did not come up with the "new" logo, either.
If I find more information once the item is delivered, I'll report back.
By the way: The System A5 shown above was 10.00 Euro including shipping, the Personal I bought today was 9.90 Euro including shipping. That's the opposite of the "Ranger" effect: Things nobody knows or wants can be found very cheap.
The Tempus A5 from above was a suggestion from the ebay algorithm, after a seller of a Mulberry A5 refused my offer. I would have never thought that those sneaky algorithms could be of any kind of help some time.
Hans