Reindeer Filofaxes

One of my readers sent me a link to this organiser, made of reindeer skin. It retails for $895.

The description from the site is:

An organizer cut from 18th century Russian reindeer hides, a leather so rare that alligator is commonplace by comparison.

In 1973, divers off England’s Plymouth Sound found the wreck of an eighteenth century brigantine that sank in 1786 with a cargo of reindeer hides. They had been cured in baths of rye or oat flour and yeast, hand embossed with a varied cross-hatching before being soaked in wood liquor, hand curried and then soaked in seal oil and birch tan oil. The result is a unique finish that cannot be replicated.

Hand made in London by G. J. Cleverley with two full height pockets, ten card pockets and six nickle binder rings that hold calendar and planner pages from Filofax and others. 6″ wide by 7 3/4″ high (15 cm by 19.5 cm). 

I was absolutely fascinated by this as I had seen photographs of these binders before AND there is a similar Swedish story which has always intrigued me.

The newpaper below clipping comes from this site which has beautiful photographs taken by a man who made several stunning items (including at least two beautiful organisers) out of this leather. This is a real must-see site

My favourite Filofax blog is one which is purely archival these days (but how I wish the owner of these items would write about them and post more photographs!) and he has several photographs of these reindeer binders – but not those in the site above so these are yet further examples.

The links to the blog and another article to his exotic binders in elephant, shark, frog and eel are here

My further interest in this story is because of the Swedish warship Vasa (or Was a) which sank in the 1628 on its maiden voyage and was pulled, perfectly preserved, out of the icy water in 1961 . It is absolutely perfectly preserved, right down to the clothing (all the leather is perfect), food and drink on the ship and is something incredible to see! She was the most powerful warship in the world up to that time – the combined weight of the shot that could be fired from one side of the ship was more than 300 kg.

The ship has a museum all to itself and if you are ever in Stockholm it is a definite must. Now that I am writing this, I must definitely go again!