Arc Company Wallet
Arc Company wallet: The Bolder XL
Since I was in high school, I have carried a pretty standard leather wallet. I started out with a leather trifold wallet that was going to get tossed after it had sat abandoned in a lost in found box for a while. I carried that wallet for a long time until it finally started to wear out.
I then moved on to a leather bifold wallet. And from then on it was bifold wallets only for me. I quickly realized after the transition from a trifold wallet to a bifold wallet just how much I HATED the way cash came out of a trifold wallet with that permanent curl. I think my years of working cash registers through high school and college at different jobs also influenced that thought. It was always annoying when a customer would hand you cash from a trifold wallet. It never sat flat in the cash register drawer once it had been folded that way! I’d always have to bury those bills under the other ones in the register drawer.
I guess these days that isn’t as much of an issue as it once was since not as many people carry and use cash. But I’m still someone that does, and I tend to try to pay for things under $20 with cash. I also try to pay cash when I can at small businesses as well since it saves them money in credit card processing fees. Not to mention that with the number of businesses (big and small) often charging customers to use credit cards I will pay cash when I can to avoid the fees. I also like to carry cash to tip servers at businesses even if I’m using a credit card for the main purchase. This way they get to take that cash at the end of their shift rather than waiting for someone to cash them out later for their tips.
A few months ago, I started watching videos on minimalist and EDC wallets. There are so many brands and styles out there! I am a creature of habit so changing something like the style of wallet I’d been carrying for 25+ years was a lot to wrap my brain around. Yeah… I know. It shouldn’t be such a big thing, right? But I tend to overthink most things. (The length of some of these blog posts should be enough evidence of that!)
While watching all these videos I came across a video on Taylor Martin’s Best Damn EDC channel on YouTube about Arc Company products (The Many Great EDC Organizers by Arc Company). Not everything in that video is a wallet but I was enjoying it anyway and liked the products that he was showing off.
The very last product in Taylor’s video was The Bolder wallet, and I really liked the fact that it could hold cards, cash, and a bit of EDC gear. The one thing I didn’t like is that based on the photos on the Arc Company site you’d have to trifold cash to fit it in one of the pockets. And I didn’t think it would hold quite enough cards for my needs. But it was so close to something that I thought I would really enjoy carrying!
That’s when I found The Bolder XL on the Arc Company site! It’s just like The Bolder but you guessed it… Larger! This wallet is clearly made very well, and the material is sturdy. I can tell that this wallet will last a very long time!
Arc Company wallet: The Bolder XL (with the Rite in the Rain All-Weather Pocket Pen and RovyVon Angel Eyes E3 flashlight)
For my setup I have about eight cards (driver’s license, credit cards, and health insurance cards) in the two inside slots, cash in the slot behind the cards (fits folded in half!), and on the back in that outside pocket I have a few business cards and a couple of bandages.
For gear in the outside pockets on the front I have a Rite in the Rain All Weather Pocket Pen and a RovyVon Angel Eyes E3 flashlight. They both fit perfectly in those pockets. You could easily fit a lot of different pens, flashlights, folding knives, pocket knives, multi-tools, and other types of gear in those two pockets. (For a little while I had the Gerber Assert folding knife in the front right pocket and I can confirm that it fit well there but I decided to swap it for the flashlight for now. That knife is 3.97 inches long when folded.)
Arc Company wallet: The Bolder XL (with the Rite in the Rain EDC pen and RovyVon Angel Eyes E3 flashlight)
I have been using The Bolder XL for a few months now and I absolutely love it. This is my first product from Arc Company but I can tell you right now that it won’t be my last!
Be sure to check out the Arc Company site. They have more than just wallets! Their product listings have great descriptions and photos. They have dimensions listed for the individual pockets on each item so that you can visualize what will fit in those pockets when you’re thinking about how you want to carry your gear. Their photos are also great for not only showing you the color choices but in many of the photos they show the products in someone’s hand for scale and often with actual gear in and around them so that you can really get an idea of sizes and what it will hold.
Products mentioned in this post: