Undyed Van Der Spek binder – after 4 months of daily use

It has a few more scuffs on it now but as it gets older you don’t notice them and they just add to the beauty of the binder. The colour is really darkening now and will turn to toffee as soon as the sun comes back in Sweden and we head to the lightest time of the year. The patina is developing beautifully and even after 4 months, I have no desire AT ALL to move out of this binder. Interestingly, it is the binder I have received the most compliments on – ever. So many people comment on it. I think it is probably because you don’t see many undyed leather items these days and they really are beautiful. Also, it is very well designed for use as a planner, notebook and wallet and I think people see that when I am paying for things or whipping it out to make bookings.

The ring marks on the flyleaf are no darker now than they were 6 weeks ago. I am still finding it very easy to use and keep the pen in the pen loop, which is very unusual for me.

If I had to make any design changes it would be to take away the little flap over the flyleaf zip tag and remove the top credit card slot on the inside left cover. The zip of the flyleaf makes dents in the top credit card in that slot so I just keep folded up paper money or bits of paper I need in there. Having no flyleaf or a flyleaf with no zip would fix that but man oh man the flyleaf with the zip is useful. I keep my coins, discount vouchers, supermarket trolley tokens and spare keys in it. I could not manage without it and it freed up extra space (which is usually taken up by a zip pocket) for credit card slots.

I use this planner all day every day and I take it out of my bag a minimum of 20 times a day. Whenever I make a booking, pay for something, travel on public transport or work on lists, out it comes.