You certainly were due for a new one.

It actually was quite comfortable in my pocket, and I sometimes carried nothing more than ID, a credit card or bank card, and a transit pass loose in my pocket, and the wallet stayed home. I carried it to work because I needed all my IDs.

That is a well loved and durable wallet!

Farewell, old friend.

I’m still using the leather fob key chain I bought a few months before I even had my learner’s permit. I am almost old enough for social security. It used to be two shades of brown, with a star design. I can still feel the star but it isn’t really visible.

How long will it take to break the new one in to your shape? That.ks the problem with ”new”!

The wallet clocked its usefulness and then some.

hhireno, I’m amazed the teenage you never lost her keys.

I think I wore the same woolen plaid school jumper for 8 years. It probably started out huge. in 7th grade we could lose the top part of the jumper and wear it as just the knife pleated skirt. There were numerous sweaters, blazers, and puff sleeved peter pan collared blouses.

I am not sure how long. It's a pretty soft wallet to begin with. And I wear baggy scrubs 5 days a week.

The old wallet had been stuffed into jeans, through the wash, in the ocean and swimming pools.

My dad had the same wallet in much better shape. I probably still have it somewhere:-)

Wow, Pal. Congrats on finding the right replacement! I understand because I use, reuse, recycle, and repurpose everything — and then I still hang on to things for sentimental reasons. I thought I was the worst in the world for that kind of thing, but you have eclipsed me. :)

…. Now I’m wondering if you thought a wash cycle would improve the condition of your wallet. lol!

The replacement is good because it has a small wallet that pulls out that has room for an ID and a card or two. I am still getting rid of a few things from my father who has been dead for 7 years, --so I will get rid of his wallet-- because he lived with my sister for a couple of years, and she didn't go through some of the small stuff in his dressers, it just got packed into a couple boxes and there are useless things, but also things like a box of people's wedding bands and such. And I found a vintage Gucci watch at the back of a small drawer in his valet that contained mostly collar stays and such. So it has to be sorted through when I have time.

That old wallet certainly served its purpose and then some. I do like your new one a lot.

That is one well used wallet. When I was going through my dad's key/wallet drawer after he died, I found every single wallet he had ever owned. All in good shape. I could have sent you several.

Sometimes they are like old friends you just don't want to part with. I'm learning, slowly, to discard "things" that no longer fit, are too faded, stuck way back in the cabinet or closet. Good luck with the new wallet.

I like the new wallet!

I get this, I keep things a long time, too.

Re: wallets … my dad and late DH used to have wallets and checkbooks (anyone remember those? Ha) custom made by a renowned saddle maker. They were monogrammed and had a tooled pattern. Beautifully made. I still have my late DH’s, and the one my dad had made for me in the ’90s. My DD wants them someday.

Sometimes i dont realize how old and shabby something has become until it totally falls apart. I just get used to it. Im still using a leather checkbook cover that was a gift from my late sister, who has been gone for thirty years.

Enjoy your new wallet, pal.

I have actually wanted a new wallet for a couple of years. What I didn't want was one that was made flat that was kinda stiff when you folded it that I needed to break in.

I also didn't want one that cost hundreds of dollars, although I wanted one that was Like ones that cost hundreds of dollars, not something cheap. Obviously I look for marathon products.

So I came across this one on sale with additional discounts and less expensive than the ones in other colors. And I like green well enough. So it's a wallet that started out expensive that was very reasonable.

One of my longstanding issues is not being tempted by sales, so I would always ask myself, "Do I want this because it is on sale, or would I want this at full price"? (if I was willing/able to pay full price). I think this is reasonable enough in theory, but a lot of times this meant that I shopped when I needed something and I paid full price for it. Which meant that I didn't necessarily buy very much.

The other problem is that because I wear smaller sized shoes, they are often sold out when on sale. And sometimes I have trouble with availability of other things on sales. But for years, I would look a little bit online, and I would walk into brick and mortar Brooks Brothers, or a shoe store that carried Alden shoes, or a Puma store or an Adidas store, and buy what I needed when I needed it. I didn't shop and buy online.

Well, now that I have a place where I can have things reliably delivered without being stolen, and a number of places have buy online and pick up in store/return at store, that problem is solved. A lot more possibilities have opened up.

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I got a good shirt for $13, free delivery for example. Of course the downside for me is that an ordinary shirt needs about $30 -40 in alterations. (Moving the entire placket up the arm of the shirt, so the cuff can be moved up enough to actually expose my hand, for example). Dress shirts are easier, I can go to Brooks and buy a 15-1/2 neck with the shortest sleeve length available in that size and an extra slim cut, and it's close enough. But long sleeved casual shirts, the sleeves are ridiculous.

My SO, the human coat hanger (6'1", 145 lb.) can walk into any sale and walk out with any bargain that fits perfectly. Other than t shirts, polo shirts, and jeans, any casual sort of clothing I buy needs a lot of alteration.

My husband and I both commonly try to use items until they are used up. My own wallet (woman) is a small leather pouch that looks like an envelope that is at least 10 years old. It's still going strong. I have a difficult time parting with clothing because I take good care of items and they last a long time. Love seeing someone else making the most of a good item and not throwing it away just because they want something new.

Your new one won't last as long. Leather these days is not the same "quality" or is processed differently and it just doesn't last as long.

That wallet looks like it could be carrying microorganisms to start a new pandemic.

I still wear to sleep a 52 year old rugby shirt of my Dad's. It is hanging together by threads. I have stitched together 1/3 the seams. I will never give it up.

Pal, i read this the day you posted it and in the intervening days have written, then did not post, several observations about what evidently used to be a wallet.

By any chance do you have a branch of family in eastern Alabama where my husband is from?

Listening to the beginning of upshot over tariff response, the old wallet may be our new normal.

No, 3/4 of my family is from Ireland into Philadelphia in the 18th and 19th c. and no one ventured south of Pennsylvania until WWII.

It might sound like I live in a house crammed with grubby, worn out, nearly useless things, based on some of the things I have and have continued to use, but I don't. It has to do with how I was brought up and has nothing to do with stinginess or thrift, really.

My dad kept a running inventory of about 7 dozen dress shirts, for example. And he still would take a favorite to the seamstress and have the collar turned over if it had wear on the collar rather than throw it out. When he repaired the sidewalks around the house he had them cut out the broken parts at the joints and only replaced those. It would have been cheaper to tear up the whole thing, but then hundreds of feet of concrete would have ended up in a landfill. So that wallet is an esthetic disaster, and it looks filthy, but I actually used to wipe it off with hand sanitizer. But I dunno, it's not like most people ever saw it, until I posted it in here, and I don't really know anybody in here.

Lollol, Pal— we ”know” you well enough by this time to know you value quality over everything else and i have no doubt your home is as esthetically pleasing with a deeply personal style as any we’re ever likely to see. I only asked because my husband— who is an excellent fellow in most respects— would not not get rid of his high school tennis shoes and wore them until they actually fell apart. He uses things until, and beyond, the point of viability. His bottle of Hai Karate— anyone remember that one?— is still in a bathroom drawer! None of this is sentimentality, just a deeply held belief that it is wrong to get rid of something that is ”still good” even if it is demonstrably not functional. I don’t need to tell you that the scent of that cologne (or whatever it has become over the last 50 years) is not wearable 😎 He once suggested I save the lint from the dryer to stuff pillows— as if I were ever going to make a pillow— because he didn’t like the idea of throwing away something useful. He did not grow up in anything resembling straightened circumstances so his thrift, like yours, was not related to necessity or want. Living with it I find in turns baffling, annoying and sometimes funny. I was pretty sure you had no relatives in Alabama —and that this is not a genetic trait, lol— but it is definitely a quirk that has no geographic boundaries!

I bought my dad a bottle of Jade East for Christmas because I liked the plastic Pagoda, probably around 1970. I think it was in a closet in the basement in 2015 when we removed everything from the house.

And we still had the black base (this is from an auction site, apparently there is a market for this stuff). I think it smelled somewhere between Brut and Hai Karate.

I also just framed a print that was rolled up in a tube (Minoan Bull and Acrobats in fanciful colors) that my dad bought sometime between 1958 and 1962 based on the address. Perfect condition because it hand probably been out of the tube a total of a few minutes for 60 years until it got framed.

I think if anything, there was a form of true hoarding, not like the mentally ill people you see on TV who live in piles of garbage, but things cleaned, organized, and put away. When we had the auction one of the big sellers was the Barbie stuff, because the clothes were washed and ironed, and there were pill bottles of shoes, combs and hair accessories, purses, gloves and so forth. My sisters had Barbies when the clothes were fully fashioned. There were very few missing bits and pieces of entire ensembles. But at least there were not boxes of things that had no purpose.

We looked at a house of a true horder and most of the former bedrooms had metal shelves in them with labeled boxes and bins: a box of the bamboo sticks that used to come in women's pumps. The plastic bits that come around men's dress shirts in the package. A big box of the plastic bobby pin type things that used to come on new folded shirts. Boxes of the black plastic hangers that mens ties came on, socks and belts come on and so forth. All very organized.

Yes, I think true hoarders keep stuff that has no actual or emotional meaning. For them its the act of throwing away, not what’s being thrown away. I will cop to saving those bamboo sticks (now plastic, with a T at the heel end) and keeping them in my shoes. When a pair goes I keep the sticks for a pair that doesn’t have them or to replace one that breaks 😉

I think I have shoe trees that are bordering on antique. I know the Florsheim ones are at least as old as the Florsheim shoes I have, so pushing 60, and there are some that are older than that. They really do keep your shoes from curling up.