Hi this is Trevor with LeatherWallets.org. In this series of videos we are looking at money clip card holder wallets. And in this particular video we are doing a review of the Alpines Swiss leather money clip wallet. This is how it comes. It's priced at Amazon at the time that I purchased this I bought it for $9.99. And this is how you'll get it. What we're going to do is we're going to talk about the packaging, the number of pockets, how many cards you can fit into it reliably, how much money it can hold reliably. We're going to measure the size of the weight. We're going to test the leather. How does it feel smell. How does it handle scratches. We're going to look at the construction. So we're going to take it apart see what's on the inside. This one does have RFID protection. So we will go ahead and test that out. All right well let's go ahead and get started. So I already opened this and took a look at the wallet. This is they call it a gift box. It's it's like cardstock that's folded into an envelope. Erm yeah. So I don't you know this is all a judgement so you think what you want this to me isn't a gift box. Just compare this to another wallet that will be reviewing in this series. This is the Leatherology. And yeah that one is absolutely a gift box and no need to even wrap that guy. This is of course a lot more expensive. But that's a gift box. This cardstock envelope. I don't know. I have a hard time calling out a gift box. All right. So there's that. You get this card in it. It's a I don't know if you guys can take a look at that. This isn't something I usually pay attention to. But yeah. All right. With the wallet we've got this business card that states the MSRP I don't know of you can see that there MSRP of sixty five dollars. This wallet is not worth sixty five dollars. I don't know where they came up with that number or. Why they would put that on there because it's a straight up. I mean it's crazy. All right. This card talks about the RFID protection that's in the wallet and a little bit of info on that so great. All right. Here's the wallet. You see we have an ID window up front with a thumb hole. We've got one pocket in the middle here. And then two others on this side with a magnetic money clip. I feel like there's just one magnets on there. Feels all right. The leather is a little bit shiny. The price tells me that this leather is a. Is not a high quality. The dye looks pretty good based on the edge. You got all the leather is turned here and stitched and that's good. Let's go ahead and test the capacity on this guy. Let's get some measurements here real quick. So I'm going to do this all in millimeters but I'll put a conversion up for everyone millimeters easier and you'll see why. All right. So this way I get 101.2mm. 101.2mm. You can read that this way I get. 71.4mm And then width. I get. 14. 15.1mm. Millimeters. Right. As far as the pockets go. For that guy. You've. Got to. Turn this this way. For that ID wallet. About 60 millimetres wide. Center pocket. 59 millimeters. This. Pocket here. Is 60.5mm. And this last wallet err last pocket. 60.7mm. Just about 60mm for each of those pockets. Let's go ahead and test that their capacity and see all the cards feels. So I've got a bunch of test cards here we can put in. Feels fine it's a little tight right now because this is new leather wallet. That's that's perfectly acceptable. And you do want it to be a little bit tight. The leather will give and stretch with age and use so little time now means it will be a good fit later on. I just noticed this once his card was in there. But you see? A pointing device here. Do you see right here? How that leather is notched in. It's not straight. That's crappy. That sucks. They're eyelash All right. So back to what I was saying it's a little snug. And that's fine. At first snug isn't bad. There's this next pocket has me a little concerned. So if this pocket is the full depth this card will be hard to get out if they shortened up the depth and made it. Well. It. That is not much grip but that would be something so if they cut off that pocket somewhere around here. So it doesn't go all the way in that won't be too bad but let's go ahead and test that out. OK, again it's a little snug. And it does go all the way in. So that's going to be. Really bad getting out and you know let's test the other pockets before even trying to get that out. So same with this pocket. This is the only problem with wallets that have vertical I'm not the only problem but this is an issue with wallets that have these vertical pockets is that you know cards can get lost in there. So check this this one.
Is right. And again nothing stops you from getting that card in all in there except for you consciously making the decision not to. And then let's put one in this. OK so this is getting real tight now.
Way too tight. You just got three cards in there. You're going. That's that's too tight.
OK. So let's pull all of these out. And let's not push them all the way in this time. Like there.
Maybe the same depth with that guy. A little bit deeper with this guy.
All right. So I don't I don't like that.
That's pretty tight. But you can get it out and see I just pushed that one in more.
This is this is not good.
If they have another notch up here on this side I could grab this card by both front and back and that would be you know easy to get. If this card goes down past this line and you have other cards in you pretty much have to take everything out to be able to pull it out. That's just that's not good. You're not going to have. You're not going to like this wall until it breaks in and they stretch out a little bit. We put four cards in there based on the tightness. You may be able to put one more so in for cards. That's three credit cards in the slot pockets and one ID. You could probably you could probably fit one more card at the max two. And that's that's really pushing it. In the beginning probably for the first week or two. We're going to this one this. Crap.
That just pushed that other card in there. That's pretty tight. That's very tight. That's it. I'm calling it at one ID.
1 ID and one two three. four.
If they would notch this pocket out the same way it is here. This this pocket would be useful as it is. It's like a storage right now something that you're going to put in there and forget about it. And that's the it. Four cards and an ID.
Let's test cash now.
All right. So I've got a bunch of bills here. Let's try with ten to start out two three four five six seven eight nine ten. I am going to fold it once and set it in there.
Make sure it's good and secure. My dog Mance, lay down bubba.
Magnets aren't very good for. Well I mean it it would be fine for fewer bills. Ten I'm not going to trust ten bills in there just because any little bump on this area and the magnet is going to release let's drop it down to seven. Let's try seven. That feels good right there.
Looks like Seven is good. Let's bump it up. Let's try Eight. Not
Bad.
Eight looks all right. Let's try nine. So nine is getting
To be a little bit loose here.
All right. I'm going to say eight bills. Eight bills is the max this guy can hold. All right so what's next. Talked about the packaging the pockets capacity cards money size. Let's check its and weight here.
See that. It's zero. So 50 grams is what we're looking at for that guy.
Which is fine. Nothing wrong with a 50 gram wallet.
Let's go ahead and scratch this guy up. So what we're looking for is what will the leather look like after it's been scratched.
Just pick up some sandpaper here. It's.
150 grit. We're just going to look. So. Let's rough up.
Underneath this money clip here.
area. So I don't know if you can see that.
It's lightening up a little bit. Which
is fine, you know. It looks all right.
I don't see any major issues here at to be concerned about.
Looks fine.
So scratches it will lighten up but that's not so not too bad. If it was like a little white we'd have an issue.
Looking at the leather. Let me just get you a close up of what that scratching did.
All right.
It feels. I mean it's it's fairly soft.
I got a couple of pieces of really high quality leather here to compare it against some full grain here.
And some embossed. This one's embossed. So. The leather is a little bit.
You can tell it. This one's embossed. Also you can feel.
Feel that on there. It feels just a tiny bit plastic like and not as as leather like as those pieces.
It's not too bad though. Nothing nothing too major.
Oh wow. It. Has a definite chemical smell.
So there is a type of weather that is basically scraps pieces. And what they do is instead of throwing away the scrap pieces they get those grind them all up and mix it with this glue and then run it out on a sheet and let it dry.
That's considered leather because it's made of leather pieces. And that's what I bet this is made out of the. They state it's genuine leather genuine leather is a marketing term.
Here in the U.S. genuine leather typically means something that is this type leather or this. This finished leather here. That's what I bet it is it doesn't smell good at all. Yeah.
Let's go ahead and let me pause for just a second. We're going to see if we can get this leather to melt and that will give us a little bit more information about what it's made of. Hold on.
All right. I'm back. I've got a lighter here. See what happens.
If you can see that. Smells. Terrible.
Yeah started melt there.
Yeah that's no good leather on this guy. I am rating very low. We'll do a couple more tests when we open it up. But so far it's not looking very good. And man did I make this room smell bad. All right let's test this as RFID so let's jump on that here. I have a.
RFID credit card.
And here is a little thing you see at that store.
And you can see it does work.
All right. So let's go ahead and throw in the I.D. window. The first shot.
Nothing that is good.
Throw it and this window in our pocket and nothing.
All right. So it does look like. And remember this is so it's a credit card. That's a smart credit card with the tap and pay RFID. This works on the NFC frequency which is thirteen point five six megahertz. Some of you out there will have building access cards that are called proximity cards. And they work off a different frequency. I don't have the ability to really test that at the moment on that frequency is 126 kilohertz. And so we can tell for sure it's it's passing on thirteen point five six megahertz which is easier to block frankly than the lower frequency. This doesn't specify NFC or the frequency but. I can almost guarantee you that it's not going to block access card. So keep that in mind when you see RFID, there are two frequencies. If you're looking for smart cards it will block it. Anything like a proximity card which is an access is normally used in access cards.
Won't block that. All right. That is it for the tests they had in mind. Let's cut this bad boy open.
First let's take a look at the magnet here. I am just interested in.
How.
Well first I'm interested in how this does look like it is stitched as well as glued.
So it looks like it's cotton thread which isn't the best thread to use. It's what's used in most wallets until you get you know into the more premium brands. But.
Cotton thread there is check this and let's cut out the battery there. Not.
I would like to know. What do you think the chances of me. So let's see. Do I have any. Looks like they're both magnetic. Both sides are magnetic. Ranks are set aside and will compare to those in the wrap up. Take this out. Look. At this leather and this backing.
So the parts that are going to wear on this wallet. Is where this is attached to the wallet. And they did a fairly good job. I would have liked to see double stitching. Down here where it attached.
Right here on this end. And. As you can see there's just this single stitching there.
Double stitching would be would have been better.
We've got a backing material here I don't know what this is. Leather is way thin and stretching.
Alright. Now onto the main part of the wallet for this part of the wallet the areas that get that fail faster than the rest of the wallet is going to be this area here. So imagine you have a bunch of cards in the wallet.
They're putting pressure on this seem here.
With enough time and with thin enough leather these stitching holes become like a perforated you know paper area. So it just rips right along that line.
Having thicker leather having holes that are a little bit further apart. Prevent that somewhat from happening. This leather is very thin. So that's out. Let's go ahead and cut it down the middle.
And then we'll look at each side.
Alright, there you go. I got the leather folded over and then this.
These are both stitched. Now this topsides stitched and these two are folded over and glued. You have your RFID material there.
Let's cut these stitches. Got this thick. Backing material. Which is. I don't know what that is. Its some kind of rubber.
Like a mat. I don't know what this is. Kind of has like a.
Thick duct tape feel to it with the cloth cloth. Liner. Very glued down as whole pieces glued. And that's that's pretty good. You're still going to so this plastic is going to in time wear out. It will get hard and brittle and then just break.
It is pretty well attached. Right. So there's that side.
Let's take a look at this side.
And that's what happens when you turn out when there are when the leather is very thin like that. It's easy to tear. All right. So the RFID material here it's. Doubled up on this side because we've got that. This is like duct tape stuff. And then a couple pieces of RFID material there. And it's like that's at least one more the liner to the pocket and you can see this is that the part that goes you know the cards go down right in here. Just a flap of leather there. The RFID liner on the inside. Then.
And then the other pocket then on that piece so good in lining it with RFID.
Give them credit there. I don't know. They may have all this. This backing in here. Next to the leather.
Alright. All right. So here it is this is what makes the... As you can see Made in India. So not China. This is what makes the Alpine Swiss leather cardholder wallet. We've got a bunch of this kind of duct tape. I
don't know what this material is but it's like a rubber. It feels like duct tape to me. I don't know what it is pockets. It seems like almost at least each pocket was lined with the RFID material which is what these are. You've got thin leather all the way around especially along the seams. So you've got these are the pocket linings. You know black material. I don't know what this is either but just a woven material there. And that's it.
OK so that's what makes the wallet. OK. So we've torn down the Alpine Swiss leather cardholder wallet. And let me tell you my thoughts.
So this wallet holds 4 cards and a I.D. and that's if you're willing to put up with those deep pockets or maybe have really tiny fingers and don't feel like that'll be an issue. It holds seven bills with the magnets here. Not a ton. That's not great. The leather is smells very. Has a high chemical smell to it. It feels pretty nice. So this grain is stamped grain and that is OK, it doesn't rip terribly easy. That piece did. So. So yeah.
So if you can put up with the it absolutely frustrating way to get out the cards for at least you know the first month or two months until the leather stretches conforms enough around your car that they come out easily. You don't mind paying 10 bucks for a wallet that last you know three months. On the low end.
I'm I'm fairly certain this will last three months if you're not packing it full of cards and maybe maybe up to a year. You know you don't mind paying ten dollars for a wallet with a little bit of gamble on how long it will last. You want a wallet that has a RFID protection and does it fairly well or at least has every pocket mind. This may be a good choice for you. I wouldn't buy it as a gift for someone if you're looking for something with a fancy gift box. This cardstock box in my opinion doesn't cut it. For really a truly gift boxes just packaging and that's it. So I hope you found that useful. Check in with the next video we're going to be stepping up from the Alpine Swiss to a Mutbak cardholder wallet right here. It's called The Bunker. Check for that in the next video I jump on the Web site LeatherWallets.org.
You can see all the reviews. All the wallets that we're taking a look at let me know if you have any questions if there's anything that I didn't do that you want to see or anything that I did that you thought was useless and you don't want to see in any further videos. This is new for me so so I'm trying to get better and learn. Any advice or tips that you can share things you like. Didn't like, I would appreciate that. All right guys thanks so much. Goodbye.
