My Franklin Quest collection

I was recently doing a bit of a reorganization of my planners and insert pages and realized that I’ve amassed a small collection of Franklin Quest binders.

Franklin Quest was the corporate name of the training and planning company which is now known as Franklin Covey.  These binders all date from the 1990s.  They are incredibly well built using durable materials.  Even the well used vinyl binder still looks very presentable.  The green binder at the top of the pile was used when I purchased it, and I carried it every day for six months and it shows no wear whatsoever.

These are incredibly practical binders; they all feature two huge pen loops which are sensibly placed towards the top of the binder so the pen may be fully inserted and hooked via the shirt clip to the loop without protruding from the bottom of the cover.  They all have large rings, ranging from 30 to 44mm.

The interiors of these have similar features.  All have a secretarial pocket, a couple of business card slots, and a pair of slip pockets.

All three lie perfectly flat.  The binders are properly built like books, with a spine, hinge, and cover.  These models are very structured and have very firm covers which make them easy to write in when standing without a table or desk.  Franklin Quest also made unstructured binders which would appeal to the floppy binder fans.

One of the best features of these is the ease with which the rings may be changed.  The rings may even be swapped from one binder to another.  The burgundy zip binder came with a set of 1.5 inch rings, which I swapped into my green open binder.  If you want to do a similar swap, make sure that the binder you are moving the rings to is large enough to accommodate them.  Remember, an extra quarter inch of ring space will push your tabs a quarter inch further out to the edge of the binder, which could cause problems if the covers are not wide enough!

The rings on all of these binders function perfectly and give me not the slightest trouble.  It is handy to know that if they ever do malfunction it is so easy to replace them!

I bought these binders on ebay.  The leather compacts cost about $20-$40 each.  The vinyl binder was purchased because I wanted the inserts from it; I paid about $5 plus shipping for that one.  If you buy one of these, try to find one which includes the black plastic page-lifters.  These are inserted at the front and back of the binder and help guide the pages away from the spine when you close the binder.  They do not appear to be available to purchase separately from FranklinCovey and are really nice to have.  Some ebay sellers sell these separately and charge absurd amounts for them!

If you have any questions about these binders pop them into the comments and I will do my best to answer them for you.