If you’ve read any of my posts about the various pocket Filofax organizers I’ve used over the years, you probably noticed that they were all models that have no pen loop or fastener strap. Snap-closing fasteners have become the more common option for pocket Filofaxes, so I always assumed that having a fastener strap was the default configuration and thought models without it were rarities that I’d been lucky to find. But in the last year or two, I noticed a couple fastener-free Filofax models I wasn’t aware of, and after being inspired to dig into what other models might have been available, I discovered that my assumptions about pocket Filofaxes were all wrong. The very first pocket size Filofax organizers were introduced as slim, small-ringed models that had no fasteners– in fact, fasteners weren’t even an option at first. Over the years, there have been quite a few other models that came without fasteners. They’re still rare, but a lot less rare than I thought.

Thanks to the catalog archive at Philofaxy, I’ve worked up a chronology of what came to be called “pocket slim” Filofax models, which have no fastener, (often) no pen loop, and (usually) small 11mm rings. It seems that not all of these models were officially cataloged, or perhaps were only offered for sale in certain countries for which catalogs don’t appear in the Philofaxy archive. So this history may not be quite complete, but hopefully I’ll have captured all the official US/UK models.

In Part 1 of this series of posts, I’ll cover the 1980s and 1990s. Part 2 will cover the first decade of the 2000s and Part 3 will bring us from 2011 to the present. I’ll conclude with Part 4, about some oddities and alternatives from other brands.

But first a little background on pocket size Filofaxes in general. The original parent company of Filofax sold looseleaf ring binders in various sizes since at least the 1930s, based on this ad shown in the corporate history on the Filofax website:

This Philofaxy post has more early catalog photos showing smaller organizers and inserts. But from at least the late 1930s (based on this source) through the brand reaching its heyday in the mid-1980s, what we now call “personal” size organizers (with inserts that measure 95 x 171mm, or about 3.75 x 6.75 inches) were the predominant product.

The older catalogs can be rather hard to follow– the “personal” size is sometimes referred to as a “pocket book”, as opposed to even larger desktop organizers. (The only pockets they’d fit in would be a man’s jacket pocket, probably.) The 1979 Filofax catalog posted at Philofaxy says on page 1 that “all sheets are a standard size, 6 3/4 x 3 3/4″ (171 mm x 95 mm),” despite page 13 offering “memo books” in larger sizes and “small ring books” that accommodated “junior” inserts measuring 2 1/2 x 4 1/2″. But these “memo books” were being marketed as just basic looseleaf notebooks, with plain or lined paper, address sheets and A-Z index tabs being the only inserts offered (as opposed to the wide range of inserts for highly specific purposes that were available in the personal size). They were not that different from looseleaf notebooks offered by other manufacturers– see this link for a 1911 catalog showing some made by W. J. Gage and Co.

That 1979 catalog may have been the last gasp of Filofax offering “basic” looseleaf binders. Shortly thereafter, they must have decided to focus on selling up-market personal organizer systems, so they stripped down their offerings to a narrower line of “personal” size leather organizers and printed inserts. This was the Filofax that exploded in popularity and became iconic in the 1980s. In the posts to come, we’ll see how pocket size Filofax organizers were (re-)introduced and evolved over the next few decades.