Guest Post - Some enabling with LeBonCoin.fr ?

Merci beaucoup to Frédérique for this informative guest post

LeBonCoin.fr is the French equivalent of the "classified ads" section of a newspaper : people can place ads for... anything, cars, appartments, and so on. There's no payment system included in the website (unlike ebay), there are just ads, with 3 pictures max, a small description, and it's sorted geographically, by "département". Usually, you can get in touch with the seller by phone or email, and you agree together of the form of payment, and shipment, if that is the case, or you agree to meet in person, and exchange to goods, against cash.

By the way, I am not affiliated in any way with leboncoin.fr, it's just that I'm French and living in France, and this website is used by lots of people.

As any of you, I browse Ebay from time to time, and it can be fun to find models that were previously unknown to me : had you ever heard of a zipped compact Portobello ? Or a personal Ranger ? I hadn't... ! And it's strange, but I had never really thought of browsing leboncoin.fr for good Filofax deals...

But please be warned : people who use this website sometimes aren't... Internet-litterate, you will find lots of typos/grammar mistakes (and it's in French, obviously), the pics are not always helpful (sometimes blurry, and/or too small...); and regarding people selling Filofaxes, you will not always find the exact name model (or any name, for that matter). If you like digging around, that can be fun and surprising.

So, how do you search theses Filofax on this website ? First, load up http://www.leboncoin.fr/ in your browser. Then click any part on the map, because whichever "département" you choose, the next screen will have a drop-down menu allowing you to search an item in the whole of France.

Don't bother with a complex search : "filofax" will do the trick just fine. You can then sort the results by price (lowest to highest) and then, you might have some interesting suprises.

Here is the link with the results of this query : http://www.leboncoin.fr/annonces/offres/alsace/occasions/?q=filofax&sp=1

And so, as of today (Saturday, June 2nd, 2012), we could buy... lots of vintage/discontinued Filofaxes, and some pretty cool ones !

- a blue Pocket "College" Filofax, for 4 euros (funny, my mom offered my the personal one when I was 18 and entering University, I never knew there were other formats !)

- a Cross in M2 format (!!!), color "mustard", along with a pink Letts organizer, and both for... 7 euros !

- a grey Personal Tuscany, 15 euros

- a red A4 zip Graphic (or Sketch ?), 15 euros

- a red Personal Piccadilly (!), 15 euros

- a really old Personal Savannah, 20 euros

- a burgundy (?) Deskfax (model unknown), *and* its punch-hole, both for 30 euros :

- a Personal Richmond, 45 euros

- a Pocket Siena in cinnamon, 60 euros (retails for 140 on filofax.de but currently on sale at 98 euros...)

And so on...

I am currently trying to get the M2, and perhaps the Deskfax, as I am curious about these sizes, but perhaps some other French readers of Philofaxy might like to score some of these items for themselves ?

Oh, the enabling

Happy hunting !

Frédérique

Mid West Meet Up - 23 June 2012 - Final Call

Well, after much deliberation J and Skhen would like to invite you to a Philofaxy Meet Up on Saturday, June 23, in Chicago, Illinois. It's very soon so are there any more people interested?

We're still finalizing the details but are considering meeting in Oak Park, IL--a suburb just west of the city--as there is a Filofax retailer, a Papersource shop, a book store, and a multitude of coffee and food options all close in proximity. In additon, public transportation and/or reasonable parking options are available.

That being said, we hope you can make it! Please rsvp to J and Skhen, and more details will be posted/sent out as we have them. If you know any others that might be interested in coming along please let us know.

And. finally, please let us know the kid situation. I know I want to leave my monkeys at home, but your kids are welcome to come along if need be.

If you want to know more about the details of this meet up, please initially contact philofaxy[at]gmail[dot]com

Free For All Tuesday No. 70

We are once again ready and prepared to take and answer any of your Filofax related questions.

So fire away.

Filofax Malden Compact Zipped Organiser

When I heard that there was going to be a Compact Malden released this year I was quite interested....  no make that excited! Initially details of this new model were quite hard to come by. There had been no mention of this particular model to the UK trade, but a sample appeared at a German Trade show and one of our 'fans' sent me some details about it.

At that point I thought may be it will only for sale in France and Germany, but at the time of writing it is still not appeared on either site. The next I heard was that the Compact Maldens in Pocket and Personal size had been spotted in store at City Organiser... winner!

So it will be no surprise that I bought a personal size one... no self control. So before I set it up to my own liking I thought I would write a quick review of this organiser so you can see it for your self and see if you like it or not.

Here it is in Ochre, it is also available in purple... sorry not my colour really. I quite like the colour I have also picked up a used Personal Malden in the same colour!

The leather is the gorgeous soft buttery leather we have become used to with the Malden, and it has that smell that is just so pleasant... well compared to any of the plastic organisers! 

So the front is plain with detail stitching just at the outer edge. The name 'Filofax' is embossed on the edge on the front. The zipper has a nice leather tab.

On the back there is a vertical pocket which you could use for receipts or notes. The pocket is lined with a textile material. 

Opening up the Malden, and removing the contents, it lays flat with the minimum of training. I'm sure it will get better as the leather wears in a bit.  It is equipped with 15mm rings, this compares to 23mm for a normal Personal Malden. My Slimline Personal Finsbury has only 11mm rings, although some Slimlines do have 13mm. So page capacity will be limited slightly.

In the back cover there is cut out pocket and a full elasticated pen loop, which is inside the organiser when zipped up. One word of caution about the pen loop, although it is elasticated, don't use too big a pen because unlike a clasp closure organiser the pen has to sit quite close to the index tabs. I've found my slim Frixion pen works best inside this organiser.

On the left hand cover you have a major set of pockets which are best explained on their own.

So to start with on the left hand side there are a total of 14 card slots... yes that's fourteen! Six on view in two banks of three. 

Then on the reverse side there are another four, and another four in the back most section. There is also a full length pocket in the back section and because this whole section is gusseted in leather you can keep documents between the credit card holders and the zip pocket too. In the middle there is the zipped pocket for coins or documents

The above additional photograph was taken after setting it up. Cards in the front holders, UK bank notes in the divider behind, then coins in the pocket, and passport and paper driving license in the back section, it does close ok, but as pointed out in the comments you have to distribute the coins evenly.  

The organiser came with a fairly typical set of inserts:

• Transparent flyleaf
• 6 month week on two pages diary in multi language for 2012. 
• 12 month one of the same format for 2013
• A-Z two letter per tab index
• To Do sheets
• Address sheets
• Coloured lined note paper. 

There are no section dividers or Today page markers, this seems to be a standard fill for the compact size Filofax.  I will be transferring my Week on One page diary from my current Personal Malden in to this organiser when I set it up. I should also be able to add my address pages as well from the same organiser. I'm not sure yet about adding my wallet contents although I've tried the contents for size, it all fits in, but it becomes quite heavy with coins in it, my Filofax Malden wallet does fit in my pocket quite neatly, if I'm travelling without my shoulder bag.

Now if you would like to buy a compact zipped Malden they come in Personal size in Purple and Ochre and Pocket size. The Pocket size is also in 15mm rings and is also available in Purple and Ochre. They are available at City Organiser and possibly other Filofax stores.

After finishing my photos of the compact Malden I thought I would compare it to other personal size organisers in my collection. Which might prompt the question 'what size is that'?

So in this picture from left to right. Cuban Zip (30 mm rings), Malden Compact Zip (15mm rings), Malden Personal (23mm rings), Finsbury Slimline (11mm rings)  As you can see the Compact Zip is bigger than a clasp Malden, which in turn is bigger than the Slimline. 

 

Looking at them in profile in the photo below the are stacked from thin to thick (Slimline, Compact, Personal, Personal Zip)

Finally, here is my updated Malden family.

Free Filofax Pocket day-on-two-pages diary to download

This one is based on a Philofaxy reader request which I passed on to Ray to produce a Pocket version of this popular layout.

You can download this layout as a prepared set or you can download the source files to adapt the design for yourself.

Pre-prepared sets
You can download and print finished versions for this year from our diary inserts page.

Print this double-sided. If you have a duplex printer, set it to flip on the short edge. If you don't then you'll have to print odd-numbered pages and then refeed to print the even-numbered pages on the reverse. You might have to experiment to find out how to re-feed the paper.

On one side of each sheet you'll find crop marks. Use a craft knife and a steel ruler to release the Pocket pages and punch them. The templates are set up with mirrored gutters to accommodate the holes.

If using the PDF be sure to set it to print at full size as explained here.

Source files

You can also roll your own using our source files. You'll need this Word file and this Excel file.

If you want to know how to go about using the source files, this post will help you.