Review of NEW Touch Me Size | Standard Wide ( = Personal Wide)

Thanks a lot Steve for reviewing the latest addition of our Touch Me line: the Standard Wide Ring Planner.

See the original post here.
Website: Philofaxy

Product Details
Type and Size: Touch Me Personal Wide Ring Planner
Leather Color: Stardust Croco

A lot of people asked Van der Spek for a Touch Me ‘Personal Wide’. After some thought they have brought out a ‘Standard Wide’ version in their popular Touch Me range of ring bound organisers.

Petra asked me if I would like to review a sample from the first batch that went on sale about a week ago. Of course I said yes.

I’m not particularly keen on ‘Personal Wide’ as it’s a size that was invented, it’s almost ISO216 B6 size. To me using B6 size makes more sense because it is easier to scale inserts to that size.

B6 is 125mm x 175mm whilst ‘Personal Wide’ is 121 x 172mm. The additional height of B6 is less of an issue and it’s only 4 mm wider than ‘Personal Wide’

Obviously trying B6 or Personal Wide in a normal Standard even with 25mm rings isn’t going to work, the pages stick out beyond the edge of the organiser! With 30mm rings the B6 paper pushes hard against the clasp!

The line at the edge of the B6 paper is where Personal Wide would finish, not that much different, but it just confirms that normal Standard size just isn’t wide enough for every day use with the wider paper in ‘Personal Wide’ or B6.

Standard Size fitted with 25mm rings using B6 Paper

I’m pleased to confirm that even with 30mm rings fitted to the ‘Standard Wide Touch Me, B6 fits perfectly and Personal Wide is 4 mm narrower, so no issues with that size either.

The Standard Wide Touch Me has been made generously sized to cope with being fitted with 30mm rings or 25mm rings if you wish.

I used a stack of normal personal size inserts either side of B6 size paper to make sure that the B6 stack was in the middle of the rings, the peak of the arc of the rings and therefore at the widest point.

Standard Wide fitted with 30mm rings using B6 Paper

The rest of the design of the Standard Wide is the same as the normal Standard Touch Me, they both feature:

• Full width back pocket for larger sheets of paper
• Two pen loops,
• Two full height secretarial pockets
• The inside front cover has a vertical slip pocket and also a full height zip pocket and a card pocket.
• The inside back cover has 6 horizontal card slots on the front of the secretarial pocket.

It should be noted that the inside leather goes the full width of the organiser, it’s not cut out like on some other brands. The inside of the full width back pocket and the reverse side of the secretarial pockets are finished in a synthetic leather like material.