Ed Charly is a Singapore brand that sells minimalistic wallets. They have three types of wallets available for purchase, all of which were successful Kickstarter projects. The Ed Classic is a minimalistic coin wallet that starts at an affordable S$55.
Design and build quality
The Ed Classic is comes in two types of leather – Crazy Horse Leather or Saffiano Leather. The unit I have is the Black Saffiano leather. The design of the Ed Classic is relatively simple. You have the coin pouch at the front and the card holder at the back.
The leather on the Ed Classic feels durable, tough, flexible but not overly soft. You can get a sense of how the Ed Classic is like from the video below:
The overall feel of the Ed Classic is quite premium but I did find the material used in the pocket of the card holder sleeve to slightly cheapen the experience. The material gives off a paper-like scrunching sound that does not feel premium. The video above hopefully demonstrates the sound of it. Ed Charly explains that it is due to the metallic components that they have incorporated in the fabric for RFID blocking that resulted in the sound. But overall, the build quality of the Ed Classic is pretty good for its price. The stitchings are generally quite neat, and the snap fastener is lined up well.
Features and specifications
The Ed Classic features RFID Blocking technology to protect you against RFID scanning thieves. The main feature of the Ed Classic is how slim it is. The wallet itself is only about 0.4cm thick and weighs just 35 grams. It has a compact size measuring at 8.0cm x 10.5cm x 0.9m (H x L x W), making it very pocketable. When packed full, it is about 1.3cm thick which is still pretty slim.
The Ed Classic is able to perform all features of a typical wallet – keep notes, hold cards, and store coins – in a slim form factor.
Compartments and usability
There are three compartments in the Ed Classic – (1) coin pouch, (2) card holder, and (3) cash slot. The coin pouch opens and closes via a snap fastener, and there is ample space to store your coins, keys, etc.
Flip the wallet around and you’ll find 3 card slots at the back. The Ed Classic features a quick access card slot for which you can slide your thumb against the card to quickly push out the card. It’s pretty handy – I like it.
You can likely store up to 5 cards if you squeeze 2 cards in each of the remaining card slot. I found that if you store 5 cards in the card holders, the amount of space you have left in the cash slot will decrease. It becomes a give and take situation – add more cards, you lose space for cash.
Lastly, you have a cash slot in the middle of the wallet. Ed Charly demos squeezing the tips of the wallet for the slot to open, but I found that to be quite difficult to do so especially when the wallet is filled with cards and some coins. Instead, the more practical way would be to peel the opening with your thumb and reach for your money notes there. You generally have to fold your notes in half for storage. S$50 bills will cause the bill to stick out very slightly from the wallet, so I’d recommend keeping at most S$10 bills.
If you’re usually cashless, then you can store up to 5 cards in the card holders and “sacrifice” the cash slot. I think the Ed Classic is best used as a card wallet, and when you occasionally receive some cash or coins as change then the other compartments will come in handy to store them, rather than chunking them in your jeans pocket. Check out the video below for a brief run-through of the compartments:
Conclusion
As we continue to move to a cashless world, the Ed Classic is a great option to cut down on the thickness of our wallet and embrace a card wallet lifestyle. If you’re looking to slim things down but do not want to go out full-on card wallet/money-clip style, then the Ed Classic offers a nice middle ground with a slim 3-in-1 package.
The Ed Classic retails for S$55 on their website. Alternatively, you can also make your purchase on their official Shopee store.