Minimum Squared Cardholder Review – €38.00

Minimum Squared has brought us some of the most cleverly designed wallets we’ve had the privilege of reviewing here at BestLeather. Today we’re going to show you the last item in their 2017 lineup. The Cardholder is a much simpler design than Minimum Squared’s other offerings. It competes with the best ultra-light wallets out there, and is reasonably priced.

About Minimum Squared

Minimum Squared is the product of a couple, Adrian and Sanela, who were seeking to fill a need of their own. This attempt was so successful that it became a commercial success. It began with their Red Dot Design Award-winning Slim Wallet Elastic, which we had the pleasure of reviewing a few years ago (check it out here for even more about Minimum Squared), and has evolved to a collection of four wallets. Today we’ll visit the last of these new models, the Cardholder.

Leather and Construction

Like its brothers at Minimum Squared, the Cardholder is made with the famous Horween Chromexcel leather. Chromexcel is soft, beautiful, and feels great in your hand. If you’re not familiar with this leather, make sure to check out our overview here.

The waxes stuffed into the leather “bloom” and create a color texture.

As with all their products, Minimum Squared makes the Cardholder with a single piece of leather. It’s precisely cut, folded, and stitched together to create the product you see. All aspects of creation are expertly done. This may be a simple product, but these fine details make it great.

Function

A minimal product has minimal functionality. In these situations, it’s all the more important that the execution is well done. I’d say the shining aspect of the Cardholder’s functionality is its size. The dimensions are 89x55mm. The dimensions of a credit card? 86x54mm! In other words, the Cardholder is an exact fit. What I love about this is that even with a single card, the wallet keeps it securely in place. More often than not, I need at least 2-3 cards in a cardholder in order to achieve a secure feel.

Day to day, the Cardholder performs well. When it first arrives you’ll likely need to exercise the leather a bit. A new Cardholder comfortably holds around three cards before becoming difficult to use. Over time, the leather stretches out and holds about five.

Cards are secured well at the bottom and easy to grab at the top.

Aesthetic

Chromexcel is a beautiful leather. The tones tend to be very earthy due to the tanning process. Staying true to their name, Minimum Squared lets this beauty shine with little distraction. Besides a very discrete logo, there’s nothing here but well defined lines and curves.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have your own personal touch. Minimum Squared lets you pick the thread color to make your Cardholder match your own tastes.

Conclusion

Pros: Construction, leather, look, precise minimalism, price.

Cons: None.

Minimum Squared has another winner here with the Cardholder. It may not be their most fancy design, but it certainly embodies their company name the most. This well designed and crafted wallet would be a welcome addition to any lover of minimalism. In addition, the price is very reasonable. I highly recommend the Cardholder!

Minimum Squared Minimalist Wallet Review – €64

As the second wallet in Minimum Squared’s new lineup we’re reviewing this year, today we’re going to look at their Minimalist Wallet. Their award-winning Slim Wallet is a full sized bifold wallet that keeps an impressively thin profile, but the Minimalist takes that a step further. This wallet is cleverly designed to not only hold cards, but give easy access to a few receipts or cash bills.

About Minimum Squared

Minimum Squared is the product of a couple, Adrian and Sanela, who were seeking to fill a need of their own. This attempt was so successful that it became a commercial success. It began with their Red Dot Design Award-winning Slim Wallet Elastic, which we had the pleasure of reviewing a few years ago (check it out here for even more about Minimum Squared), and has evolved to a collection of four wallets. Today we’ll visit the Minimalist Wallet.

Leather & Construction

Similar to the Slim Wallet, the Minimalist Wallet is made from a single piece of Horween Chromexcel that has been folded and sewn into the shape you see. Thread is polyester and saddle stitched. Edges aren’t burnished but are cut well and smooth.

Construction is excellently done, with no flaws. The caliber of the leather and stitch leads me to believe this wallet will last a lifetime. The elastic used to secure the top flap may wear out, but should be relatively easy to replace.

Function

At first, I thought the Minimalist Wallet was simply a card holder, but there actually is a secret trick up its sleeve. The top flap acts as a clever slot for cash or receipts. You slide one side of the bills into the slot, then tuck the other side behind your cards. In order to access cards, use the wallet normally, without pushing the top flap back too far. If you want to flip through your bills, you can push the top flap back further, and they pop out from behind your cards for easy access. I wasn’t sure how usable this feature would be, but after trying it a few times I was surprised by how well it works!

Overall, this is definitely a minimalist product. The dimensions are barely larger than the cards within, making it easy to forget it’s in your pocket. Minimum Squared suggests 4-7 cards can be held, but I’d reduce that to about five, myself. When I reached 6 cards it became fairly challenging to find and remove the card I wanted if it wasn’t at the front. However, this is leather, and will stretch a bit with use.

One tip is to use the part of the elastic inside the wallet as a card divider. You can place a few cards in front of it and a few behind it within the wallet. This makes two cards easy access: the one in front of the wallet, and the one directly behind the elastic.

I’ve always had a hard time with the one-pocket card holder type of wallets. The Minimalist Wallet makes some small improvements on the style that make it easier to use.

Aesthetic

A minimalist wallet has a minimalist look. If you love the look of well-made leather products without flair, you’ll like the look of this wallet. The single-piece design means lots of smooth folded corners and minimal exposed edges. Minimum Squared offers a few colors of Chromexcel and several colors of thread for you to mix-and-match to your taste. I have black Chromexcel with blue thread here.

Conclusion

Minimalist Squared’s Minimal Wallet is well constructed of high quality materials and looks great. If you only need to carry a few credit cards and bills, the design is great for keeping them secure and fairly easy to access. The thin profile takes up hardly any room in your pocket. The price is about right for the caliber of product you’re getting. I recommend this slim wallet as a Buy It For Life item.

Be looking forward to our review of Minimum Squared’s Cardholder in a couple of months!

Minimum Squared Slim Wallet – €165

Typically we look to leather to provide us with very durable goods. To be honest, it can be rare to see a large amount of variation in the design of those products. That’s why the Minimum Squared Slim Wallet stands out quite a bit. It’s made with tried-and-true Chromexcel leather, but designed in a completely unique way. While remaining highly functional, the Slim Wallet is both beautiful and slim.

About Minimum Squared

Minimum Squared is the product of a couple, Adrian and Senala, who were seeking to fill a need of their own. This attempt was so successful that it became a commercial success. It began with their Red Dot Design Award-winning Slim Wallet Elastic, which we had the pleasure of reviewing a few years ago (check it out here for even more about Minimum Squared), and has evolved to a collection of four wallets. Today we’ll visit the Slim Wallet, a slightly modified version of their flagship wallet. We will also be reviewing the rest of their new models in the upcoming months.

Construction & Leather

When I first received the Slim Wallet and was looking it over, I realized something incredible: this is all one piece of leather! The leather is cleverly cut, folded, and stitched into a slim and highly functional wallet.

The leather is Horween Chromexcel, which means pull-up and a soft yet sturdy feel. The Chromexcel is some of the thinnest I’ve seen used. This allows the wallet to be extremely minimal and remain very functional, though it may prevent it from holding up for a lifetime. Chromexcel is, however, extremely durable, and the Slim Wallet will certainly last for many years to come.

Thread is polyester and saddle stitched, so both material and method are of the highest quality.

The Slim Wallet is cleverly designed, uses fantastic materials, and is expertly assembled.

Function

The Slim Wallet is a pleasure to use. The amount it can hold and remain as slim as it does, complements of the thin Chromexcel and clever one-piece design, is truly incredible. Both cards and currency are easy to place and easy to remove.

The four card pockets can hold a total of 10 credit cards. Each of these pockets is designed just so to hold either two or three cards. Sometimes card pockets need some real break-in to make cards easy to access, but not so with the Slim Wallet. The smooth chromexcel and perfectly sized pockets make them slide in and out with ease from day one.

The cash pocket is uniquely designed in that one side isn’t stitched closed. This makes it easy to hold open the cash pocket, see all of your bills or receipts, and remove and replace them quickly. There is much less push and pull on the bills you don’t need to access.

The Slim Wallet remains very thin even with a full load of cash and cards. This is even more impressive considering the width and height–as Minimum Squared intended, it’s barely larger than the profile of the credit cards it’s meant to hold. This is the only folded wallet I’ve managed to forget was in my pocket. It also fits really well in the hands when you’re using it.

The only functional difference between the Slim Wallet and the Slim Wallet Elastic, as you might be able to guess, is the elastic. This means the Slim Wallet will need to be closed with the thin flap hidden behind the full-sized folds. In addition, the Slim Wallet is only offered in Chromexcel, where the Elastic is only offered in goat leather.

Aesthetic

The look of the Slim Wallet is simple and understated. It’s hard to go wrong with Horween’s color #8. It’s a gorgeous deep red, and the Slim Wallet shows it off well. The design itself is very aesthetic as well, particularly when you take a closer look and realize how clever it is. There aren’t any rough edges exposed, only smooth folds. Stitching is impressively uniform (and can be a variety of colors of your choosing). The Slim Wallet is beautiful in its functionality and simplicity, not from any excess or flashiness.

Conclusion

Minimum Squared’s Slim Wallet is a fantastic evolution of their award-winning Elastic. It’s one of the most clever designs I’ve ever seen. Yet this clever design is not at all just for the sake of being clever or for looks: the Slim Wallet is pure functionality. The surprising amount of cards and cash it can hold are always easy to access, and the slim form won’t take up almost any space in your pocket. All of this functionality doesn’t sacrifice the Slim Wallet’s simple and beautiful look. It’s certainly on the pricey side, but you’re getting what you pay for. I highly recommend this excellent wallet.

Minimum Squared Wallet Giveaway – $172 Value (2 Winners Chosen)

Congrats to Emily W. and Tarrin N. on winning a Minumum Squared Wallet!

We are pleased to feature a new giveaway from the great folks over at Minimum Squared – a small design studio out of Spain that focuses on minimalist wallets. Minimum Squared’s husband and wife team, Adrian and Sanela, are celebrating their win of the prestigious Red Dot Product Design Award, an impressive feat for a studio their size. You can read our official review of their black leather wallet here.

From the review:

One thing you’ll appreciate about m^2 is their extraordinary attention to detail. Their journey to create m^2 began when Adrian’s travels by plane and train had him considering the need for a front-pocket wallet that wouldn’t be uncomfortable while seated.  Furthermore, he wanted the wallet to hold all of his credit and bank cards, as well as look good next to a business suit.

The construction of the wallet reflects Adrian’s engineering background and Sanela’s eye for art. While the leather for the wallet is a single-piece, CAD-designed, laser cut and thinned material, the thread holding it all together is a hand-sewn Fil au Chinois waxed linen thread that goes from one corner to the other.  After testing several materials and leathers, they chose Harmatan & Oakridge vegetable-tanned goat leather for the grain, feel, and availability of colors.  It also tends to offer some stiffness after being laser-thinned, an important characteristic for any wallet.

My favorite feature of the wallet is the ability to pull paper currency out of the wallet without having to remove the entire stack of bills. You can also store up to 10 cards in the wallet in such a way that you end up not stressing the leather or stitching as much as a traditional billfold.

The giveaway will run until midnight on May 15th, when we will pick TWO lucky winners! Winners will be able to select their choice of wallet, as it comes in thirteen different color combinations. Enter below – good luck! 

Minimum Squared Wallet Giveaway

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Minimum Squared Black Leather Wallet With Deep Red Thread Review – $158.00

Vince Lombardi described success in dozens of ways over the course of his 15-year career as an NFL head coach, notably remarking “The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work; work is the key to success, and hard work can help you accomplish anything.” Passion for the craft is an emotion that drives us to work hard and design with inspiration, whether on the field of play or in the workshop.  Lombardi would also be the first to admit that you didn’t achieve success on your own; it takes a team of dedicated individuals with similar goals and mindsets.

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If you’ll pardon the extended metaphor, let’s take a look at the Minimum Squared Black Leather Wallet With Deep Red Thread and find out if it meets these definitions of success. As with many in the leather craft, inspiration for the wallet came when the creators were unable to find anything on the market meeting his functional and aesthetic requirements for his engineering-cum-traveler lifestyle.  Through a fusion of traditional leather work, modern technology, and carefully sourced materials, the husband-wife team of Sanela Kadric and Adrian Martinez, owner/creators of Minimum Squared (also known as m^2) created a minimalist wallet they hoped will appeal to a worldwide audience.

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About m^2

Sanela and I emailed back and forth quite a bit during the review process, and one thing you’ll appreciate about m^2 is their extraordinary attention to detail. Their journey to create m^2 began when Adrian’s travels by plane and train had him considering the need for a front-pocket wallet that wouldn’t be uncomfortable while seated.  Furthermore, he wanted the wallet to hold all of his credit and bank cards, as well as look good next to a business suit.

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Adrian spent hours on the Internet looking for a wallet that would meet his criteria:

  • The wallet should have the footprint of a business card and not be much thicker than its contents
  • There should be no need to fold paper money to provide quick access and keep fortunes discreet.
  • The wallet should hold international currencies (Sterling pounds and Euro notes) as well as US dollars
  • The wallet should have the same card-carrying capacity as more traditional non-minimalist wallets

After spending his time and engineering skills coming up with a “paper and staples” design, he and Sanela arrived upon a prototype that would become the current version of the m^2 wallet. With Sanela’s love for crafts and her job as a language instructor, she was able to help bring their mutual design to market.  After much positive feedback, they formed Minimum Squared.  New to the business, it was at that point that she stated, “After all, we didn’t think my husband was the only one in the world looking for such a wallet, and all the hard work was already done.  How wrong I was.”

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Construction

The construction of the wallet reflects Adrian’s engineering background and Sanela’s eye for art. While the leather for the wallet is a single-piece, CAD-designed, laser cut and thinned material, the thread holding it all together is a hand-sewn Fil au Chinois waxed linen thread that goes from one corner to the other.  After testing several materials and leathers, they chose Harmatan & Oakridge vegetable-tanned goat leather for the grain, feel, and availability of colors.  It also tends to offer some stiffness after being laser-thinned, an important characteristic for any wallet.

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While some eschew goat leather as being inferior to cowhide, this wallet is one of the finest, lightweight hides I’ve reviewed.  On giving it the “smell test”, as I do with every product, I was rewarded with that rich smell of fine leather I’ve come to expect in top end leather goods.

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The wallet measures 92 x 65 x 15 mm (3.6 x 2.56 x 0.59 inches) when filled with 10 cards and weighs in at a mere 0.9 ounces (25.2 grams).  After I added 6 bank cards and a few paper dollars, the weight went up to a little over 2 ounces (56 grams).

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Function

My favorite feature of the wallet is the ability to pull paper currency out of the wallet without having to remove the entire stack of bills.  While I am quite often lacking the aforementioned fat stack due to teenagers and orthodontia, it is a thoughtful feature ensuring the privacy of your current financial status. You can also store up to 10 cards in the wallet in such a way that you end up not stressing the leather or stitching as much as a traditional billfold.  Friends of Sanela’s who tested the wallet have put more than 10 cards in it, and while it continued to function admirably, Sanela mentioned a bit of heartbreak in not using the wallet in the spirit of its minimalist intent.

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It closes neatly via a woven elastic braid that Sanela sourced from an area close to her home in Spain.  Closing it in this manner helps keep the wallet thin and compact.  While I would question the long term durability of any elastic item, the braid is well-constructed; time will tell how it holds up.

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Aesthetic

The beauty of the wallet lies in the aforementioned attention to detail and the materials Sanela uses to make these wallets. She uses a 40-year old Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter to create the wallet labels (and write thank you notes to customers). The length to width ratio is 1.40, a little off of the golden mean (1.61), but not enough that you’d notice.  The full-grain goat leather has a nice texture you might find in a high-end pair of goatskin boots.  With the variety of leather colors and braids available, you should be able to find a pleasing color combination for your tastes.

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I’d also note that the wallet is going to fit in your pocket with room for your smartphone or portable electronic device. It’s small, sleek footprint will fit well with any type of business suit, even those of the slim fit type.

Conclusion

Sanela and Adrian have merged the science of engineering and the love of craft to come up with a well-designed and beautiful minimalist wallet.  This wallet is going to sit best on the inside pocket of a suit jacket, or carried in your business slacks.  It is not a wallet that should be carelessly tossed into a bag or thrown on a table; you’ll want to take care of this wallet due to its good looks and price.

At $158 USD as of the time of this writing, you’ll want to educate yourself on what it takes to craft a wallet of this caliber: very high quality leather and thread for the materials, a saddle-stitched (by hand) one-piece layout, and a design that met all of Adrian’s specifications, and a beautiful minimalist look that is going to complement any suit in your wardrobe.

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While I understand there are some staunch critics of goat leather, there are varying degrees in quality; m^2 has chosen a high-end brand, and it shows in the end result.  If you’re undecided and on the fence about goat leather, give this wallet a look, and it may just change your mind.

For the attention to detail, the materials, and the overall look of the wallet, I do think the Minimum Squared Black Leather Wallet With Deep Red Thread is a good investment.  However, if after purchasing the wallet, you find that you have no bills to put inside it, you might want to save a bit before making the purchase. After all, you’re going to have to buy that suit to go along with it.

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