For those of you that have read my previous posts here, you'll know that I've owned many Filofaxes over the years. However, I realised that I've only had one Finsbury before, which was a mini that I used as a combined diary and wallet.
After my most recent clear out, I managed to pick up an emerald one on eBay for a cheap price as the listing clearly showed that it had some wear and tear. I should've taken some more before photos (sorry that this one's a bit blurry), but I was a bit too keen to start to give it some TLC.
Once I took it out of the packaging, it was clear that it had some issues:
- Dry leather - after a clean with a damp cloth, I gave it a good polish with Lord Sheraton leather balsam.
- Some minor surface rust on the rings and mechanism - I borrowed some metal polish, which hasn't completely removed it, but it's much better than it was. As the Finsbury's rings are riveted in, I couldn't remove them, so I used a cotton bud to get into as many areas as I could.
- Loss of colour on the edges and corners - I was going to leave it as it was, but decided to see if I could find a cheap way to improve this. After a rummage, I found some gold nail polish, so added one coat along all of the edges, and then a second coat to the corners where most of the colour had gone.
- Loss of colour on the front and back due to a couple of scuffs - once the edges and corners were done, the scuffs stood out more, so I used one of my Staedtler Triplus fineliners to add some colour. I wasn't looking to perfectly match it, but just to make them less obvious.
- Zero flatability - once I'd removed the inserts that it came with, I was a bit shocked as the Finsbury snapped shut immediately! I was aware that it's a known problem with the model, but I suppose I've never experienced such poor flatability before. My mini one was second hand and already laid flat when I got it.
Lack of flatability - first of all, I started gently rolling the leather like this.
I then worked my way up to bending the cover completely back like this.
And then left for a couple of days with an elastic band in place.
Finally! However, it does seem that if I don't use it for a while, it does start reverting and needs a not so gentle reminder to behave again.
Gold edges and corners - I was finding this hard to photograph, so this is the best that I managed. Before applying the nail polish, the corners had lost all of the emerald colour, so were grey.
I admit that this post in long overdue, as I bought the Finsbury in October 2023... Unfortunately in that time, I have found that it's been a bit of a constant battle with its lack of flatability, so it was recently donated to a charity table top sale.
Whilst I love the colour, I was just becoming more irritated with it after using my faithful Kensington!
