Mark goes over his Best Top 10 Wallets 2021. Mark prefers minimalist wallets, but you will find a few bifold wallets, metal wallets and of course leather wallets in this lineup of Walletopia’s best wallets!
(if you want to see all the features and how many cards and cash it can hold, please watch the video)
In this review, we will present Mark’s TOP 10 wallets of 2021. I approach all my reviews in the most unbiased way I can, and if I do not personally like a wallet, which is fine, because I will still give it a proper review for those who will like this wallet. There is a reason why there are thousands of wallets out there and millions of people who like to buy those wallets because they find them attractive. However, in this review, I am going to give my personal favorite TOP 10 wallets which I reviewed in 2021. These wallets are not randomly pulled off the freebie bin, they are wallets that we bought and reviewed, and are wallets I like and would carry.
The ten wallets are the following: the Lost Dutchman Big Finn, many of you as well as I are fans of it; the Benjamin Bott Frankengull Double Wren as a card wallet, this one is really attractive; the recently reviewed Lejiled Number One wallet, an amazing origami wallet; the Tauruscamp Base wallet, another great wallet on our list; the Card Holder from Bellroy; the Pioneer Carry Altitude, which you might find surprising; the Frenchie Co Company Speed Mini wallet with the AirTag which is a big mouthful; the Schnail Atlas; the I-CLIP Heritage; and the Distil Union Wally Junior that is a MagSafe wallet.
So what makes each of these wallets my favorite? Well, let me explain first that I prefer minimalist wallets and I rarely carry cash, only coins when I travel. So this list is for my everyday carry. This is the type of wallet I live with when I go out every day, not when I do something special. So when I travel, I carry different wallets. I will indicate if there is leather involved.
Starting with the Lost Dutchman Big Finn, I like this wallet for many different reasons. It is flexible in how it carries cards and cash and can also act as a cash wrap. The wallet brings capacity, quick access, and ease of use. The quality of all of the construction is absolutely amazing, and the flap provides security for currency. Moreover, the wallet offers flexibility between two pieces of leather that are not sewn on the side, which means that the cards or cash amount can be maximized in the front or vice versa or mixed in. That capacity and flexibility in these dividers is not something seen in a lot of wallets, but I think it is a great feature in those that do it. If you are a heavy cash-carrying person, you can also use it as a cash wrap where the cash folds over or can be folded in half. This flexibility makes this wallet quite wonderful. It is handmade and saddle-stitched. Without arguing, it is a great wallet.
The next wallet is the Benjamin Bot Frankengull Double Wren. It is made in the USA from full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, and they use various kinds of leather and tanneries. What I like about this wallet is that it has a Japanese poly cord and two different colors of thread. Moreover, the fact that they use many different kinds of leather, and their leather is amazing, whether it is a Buttero, a Pueblo, Dublin, or harness, they use it from Horween or Wickett and Craig tanneries. The variety and unique color and texture options are really nice. The reviewed wallet has two different colors of leather, a black that is a Horween Dublin and a natural color that is a russet harness from Wickett and Craig. The thread, as I mentioned, is Japanese poly thread, very tight, super strong, very clean-looking, and what I love about Benjamin Bott wallets is the high sheen, finished edge burnishing that just makes it fantastic. You can see the intermingled layers of leather that look amazing. You can also notice the cuts and beveling on the edges that make getting into cash a very easy experience, both in the front and the back, thanks to the nice touch. You can also pinch it together to gain access to your cards.
Next, the Lejiled Number One, a wallet with a nice design. It is designed and made in France from full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, that is Italian Tuscany. The wallet has no sewing because it is an origami wallet, it offers great capacity, and the leather smells amazing. Its single snap holds it together, but once unsnapped, it operates without hesitation. It has an amazing pull strap and holds no sewing, everything else is folded. This is absolutely my favorite origami no-sew wallet that is on the market. Very flexible in what it can do and provide, and very functional for a no-sew origami. It contains a quick access card that is accessed with a thumb push, quite wonderful.
Our next wallet is the Tauruscamp BaseWallet. It has a great card and cash capacity. It is designed and made in Singapore from full-grain vegetable-tanned leather. The leather is just amazing, it is made of two hand-cut pieces that come from Southeast Asian tanneries. It is hand-dyed and sealed, and comes in 19 colors. The uniqueness of colors you get is amazing. The reviewed wallet is a hand-dyed orange color that is dyed on both sides. The dye process stops about halfway down. It is of excellent quality, has great paint in the end, nice tight stitching, and it uses a nice wax thread. The usability is excellent and the capacity is impressive. The weight of the leather is really thin, which helps provide the ability to make a thin wallet without compromising the strength of the leather. The features of this wallet are pretty amazing for what you get in this footprint.
The Bellroy Card Holder recommends 4 to 10 cards, designed in Australia and made in either India or the Philippines, depending on where their manufacturing is happening at any given time. It offers excellent usability and an impressive capacity. The reason why I like this wallet is that it is made for business cards, but it can easily fit credit cards and can open wide revealing itself. It has nice little breakpoints that prevent cards from flipping and sliding out from one side to the other, which is a nice thought and adds to the usability. It is a thin cut as most Bellroy pieces, and it is vegetable-tanned leather. It is fused to another thin cut piece of leather in the interior, but it provides some good interest in the color. The aesthetics are something that Bellroy is always looking for, although I do wish there was a little more reinforcement on either side. This magnetic closure is rather attractive. I know magnets are quite questionable in particular wallets, but this is awesome because it just keeps it in place, and the cards and cash capacity in this business card wallet is really good. I was able to get up to 10 cards in here with it still working and not showing any kind of stress. This is one of my favorites.
The next wallet on the list is the Pioneer Carry Altitude wallet, a bifold that can carry quite a few cards. It is a little different from the traditional slim that I like, but this is designed in the United States and made in Vietnam. It is made from a durable 3PN, a fancy material that provides a tremendous amount of durability, but it acts like leather. It fits all the currencies just fine. I really love the clean designs of Pioneer’s wallet lines, the fact that it does not have obvious seams is unbeatable, they are hidden within the back of the wallet or inside of pockets. It is already somewhat broken in for you and it feels really rough, but I like the tactile nature, it is not bad at all. The line structure has a level of cleanness that is impeccable. It fits easily in the front or back pocket and is reinforced in all the proper places that would be expected. What blows my mind is that it fits all the currencies, every single one with no exception, including the Yen and the Euro. Considering if you like to travel internationally, which I do, that makes this a very attractive wallet in a very small footprint. An interesting point, they say this will form to your body due to heat and pressure, which will soften it up but will not lose any of its strength. If you are an active person, this is waterproof so you can wash it and sweatproof it, besides, it is resistant to salt. I have put this underwater and put water on it in the previous reviews and it works just fine.
The Frenchie Company Speed Wallet AirTag is a little wallet that can hold a lot of cards and quite a bit of cash. It is designed and made in Columbia from full-grain vegetable-tanned Italian leather and has an interesting little pocket that is for AirTags if you want to use it for your carry purposes and be able to know where your wallet is. It is a trifold and the AirTag fits in between unobtrusively. There are some magnets involved in the final closure, therefore, there are some concerns about the cards put on the outside slot, but otherwise, it is a quite small footprint. The innovative nature that the AirTag fits in makes this one of my favorites for an AirTag. Besides being less obtrusive, it does not add a whole ton of bulk because it is already constructed. Both pull straps can hold up to six cards, and there is an insert in the back of the leather that provides rigidity. As a result, this wallet will not flop around, it stays rigid even when empty. My daughter has been carrying the alternate version of this without the AirTag and she really likes it. She was not sure at first, but she really does like this one.
Moving to the Schnail Atlas wallet, one wallet that was recently reviewed. It is just a teeny little wallet but it has amazing capacity, up to 12 cards or more. I think I inserted 20 during the test. It has a little Velcro slot up at the top where you can get in keys, coins, and SD cards. This is designed in the US and made in China. It is RFID, which is okay because it is a very small footprint. It comes in two colors, it looks nothing fancy, but the design is what makes it a great little wallet. It has a little pocket for cash which goes down folded in thirds or quarters. The back has a pull strap, where you put cards in. With all that, you have an amazing little footprint that you do not ever have to worry about. Nonetheless, the cards stack, therefore while the cards directly interact with each other, be aware, there could be some wear and tear occurring which is not uncommon for such wallets. However, the elastic strap that holds the cash in the front is what comes around to the side to keep the cards managed well inside.
Another recently reviewed wallet, the I-CLIP Heritage, can accommodate 4 to 10 cards. It is designed and made in Germany and has a one-year warranty on it. The reviewed wallet is stainless steel with a plastic clip, it also comes in titanium and it is not RFID. The thing I like about this wallet is that unlike the original that had a polycarbonate frame, this one does not. Moreover, if we look at the clip, it has the polycarbonate component which secures itself into the rigid stainless steel frame. Because of that, if you drop it, it will not break. There have been reports over time that if you drop the polycarbonate version, it happens to hit on a corner and would crack, this problem is not to worry about with this one. That is why it is fantastic, and the cover is still a full-grain vegetable-tanned leather that is lightly burnished on the edges, quite like that in the frame. I like this wallet because you have a viewing window of your cards. The cash folds in thirds or quarters and folds over. In addition, the reinsertion under tension is very easy for cards that are left in there. The way this wallet has turned out from the original one is quite remarkable. If you have any concerns about a I-CLIP dropping and breaking, you will not have it with this one.
The final is the Distil Union Wally Junior MagSafe. Unlike the Apple wallet, this one can handle up to four cards as well as some cash. This is designed in the US and made in China. It has leathers, magnets, steel, and nylon. As with all MagSafe wallets, they work with the iPhone 12 or better. Distil Union is known for their magnets, when you push cards in, there is always that risk with wallets that cards are going to come out, and if you push hard enough, it will, because this is molded. And this molded piece means that the leather cannot hold around it. Unlike the Apple wallet, which has the tab that creates friction on the bottom, this one does not, but it makes up for it by the strap that pops over the top and secures itself with a magnet. There you go, total card security.
That wraps up my top 10 favorites for 2021, if you would like to know anything about these particular wallets, I recommend you check the individual reviews. Also, please take time to subscribe if you want to learn more about wallets before you buy them or even if you just love the craft.
