This is my review and thoughts on Loyal Stricklin’s Edison Wallet, a Field Notes sized wallet, in the Honey colorway.
Loyal Stricklin is a American made small company that started with its owner Michael Stricklin. Loyal Stricklin’s most iconic product is their Aviator Mug, a leather sleeve with a handle made to fit perfectly over a mason jar. The Aviator Mug is available in many different leathers including Horween Chromexcel, Dublin, and various bridle leathers. It acts as coozie for taking your beverage on the go including hot coffee, iced coffee, or tea. The Aviator Mug was my first purchase from the company back in 2014. While my sleeve has taken on several water stains, it has many more years of life even if the mason jar were to fall and break.
Let’s move onto the Edison Wallet, which I would also say is one of their better known products. The Edison Wallet is a Field Notes style sized wallet designed to carry a pen, a notebook, cards, and a handful of cash. It also has enough room to stuff receipts in its pockets. The item listing also includes a Loyal Stricklin branded twist pen and one blank Field Notes book to get you started. The Edison Wallet fits notebooks sized 3.5in x 5.5in (9cm x 14cm).
I wanted to switch things up from a typical pull-up type leather such as Horween Chromexcel/Dublin, so I went with the honey color after scouring the web for some pictures of how the leather would age. The honey leather is a harness leather that starts off as a bright chestnut-like color. The leather is really smooth and consistently keeps a sheen without any conditioning so far. The wallet’s edges are burnished very well, and the stitching is altogether great without any missed holes.
During my first outing with the Edison wallet placed in my rear pocket, I noticed the leather near the bottom spine creasing in an undesired manner. I figured it was because the length of the pen I slotted didn’t reach near the full length of the wallet. I attempted to purposely push the pen down before closing the wallet, but that didn’t help much. It’s not something that bothers me anymore because the creasing worsen much after that.
There are two notable differences from my One Star Leather Park Sloper Senior Wallet (my review), a similar sized Field Notes style wallet designed to carry similar items (pen, cards, cash, receipts).
The first difference is that Loyal Stricklin’s pen slot is stitched on the inside to sit the pen at the wallet’s spine when closed. In terms of volume, this does make the wallet a few centimeters narrower in width at a cost of making the spine area bulge when equipped with a pen. This can be a positive if One Star Leather’s Park Sloper Senior is too wide to fit in a desired pocket such as the rear. My Park Sloper Senior does snugly fit in some of my rear pant pockets and not at all in others – it depends on the brand of the pant. However, One Star Leather does make a “no pen slot” version if width is an issue.
The second difference is that the Edison Wallet’s card sleeve slots are vertically slotted in a set of three. The slots stack upon each other. Three slots is great especially if you place the frequently used cards at the front. However, if you have too many cards, they will stack upon each other and make the Edison Wallet very bulky.
