An extremely minimalist leather wallet
If you’re looking for something less traditional, the Dun Wallet is truly thinner than any other bifold we found, though the lack of a traditional bill compartment may take getting used to.
Get this if: You consider thinness to be the most important thing about your wallet, and you carry almost no cash.
Why it’s great: The Dun Wallet is billed as the world’s thinnest wallet; though we’re not able to verify that claim, it certainly is the thinnest wallet that we tested. The whole wallet is marginally thicker than half an inch when full, and basically isn’t much more than an elegant slice of rectangular leather folded in half with card slots. Unlike traditional bifolds, it lacks a cash sleeve, so it has no extra layer of leather—there’s just a triangular piece of leather overlaying the card slot that you’re meant to slide your bills through. It’ll fit more cash than a card holder, though it takes getting used to.
The slots are also stretchy enough to accommodate whatever cards you carry. The wallet has only four of these card slots, but we were able to slide two cards into each slot with no problem. The slot openings are on the short edge of the wallet, with ample spacing between so that, unlike with other wallets bearing more tightly spaced slots, you can slide the cards out with your thumb rather than having to wedge your finger between the card and the one behind (and possibly catching your cuticle in the process). It’s also hard to deny that the Dun Wallet has some wow factor, and not in an obnoxious way—it’s discreet enough to look like a regular wallet, but if someone were looking closely, they’d notice that it’s definitely not one. The Dun Wallet is thin.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: If you carry a good amount of cash or receipts, this wallet will not serve your purposes. The triangular sleeve is slightly annoying, especially when you’re having to flip bills over from side to side to find the card you’re looking for, but if you don’t carry around a lot of bills, it’s a nonissue.
The interlocking-D logo on the exterior of the metal tab is an annoying signal that you may not want on your wallet. Unfortunately it’s impossible to take off.
Dimensions: 3 by 4.125 inches
Thickness when filled with six cards and two bills: 0.59 inch
Card slots (not including cash pocket): four
Material: leather and steel
Colors: black, brown
Warranty: one year
The best cheap, mostly leather bifold: Allett Leather Sport Wallet
An actually affordable leather wallet
A slim leather bifold wallet that also happens to be cheap is practically a unicorn, but Allett cleverly uses leather only on the exterior to keep its wallet affordable.
Get this if: You want a leather wallet that’s actually affordable, a bit unusual-looking, and capable of stowing a tiny pen in a pinch.
Why it’s great: The problem with a lot of the cheaper leather wallets is that they fall short in much of what we look for—they have low-quality leather (just coming from an actual cow is not enough), they have loose and uneven stitching, and they’re often so stuffed with pockets and flaps that they barely count as “thin” regardless of their marketing. It’s easy to find cheap leather card holders, especially made of tougher leather, but cheap cork wallet are much harder to come by because more leather equals more expense. The Allett Leather Sport Wallet gets around this problem by using soft leather just for the exterior—the interior is a moisture-wicking nylon with just two card pockets. The pockets are lined with rubber for maximum grip, and Allett claims you can fit five in each, for a total of 10 cards. In our tests, we found that claim to be true, though we also found it cumbersome to sort through any more than three cards simply because they’re all just stacked into one pocket without any separation. The grippy rubber interior did keep the cards very secure, though.
For a leather bifold, the Allett is also extremely compact—not just thin but also both shorter and narrower than the Leatherology (and shorter than the Dun).
The Allett also comes in a larger “Original” size, with four card slots rather than two (though each card slot is shorter). We didn’t test this version, as it’s bigger than we wanted for in this guide, but based on our other experiences with Allett, we think it will be similarly useful, and a good option if you want a higher capacity wallet that’s still slim, such as for stashing in the inside pocket of a jacket.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: It doesn’t really look how you’d expect leather to look, either in texture (it’s extremely smooth) or luster (it’s notably matte). To be honest, when we first saw the exterior, we thought it was some plastic-leather material. Then we touched it, and it had the feel of something akin to the leather of a car seat, which is fitting because it’s made of common-in-cars napa leather. Napa (also spelled “nappa”) leather is full-grain leather that becomes especially soft after a salt-treatment process. It’s also treated with water-soluble colorants to last longer and become more resistant to light. The result is a leather that can sometimes appear devoid of leather’s grainy hide texture and characteristics. (A common Google question: “Is napa leather real leather?”)
On our Allett, the stitching on the exterior was a bit uneven; the lines along the edges criss-crossed and hit the edges of the wallet, and weren’t particularly uniform or tight. There’s also a ½-inch-tall “A” debossed onto the exterior, which may not be to your liking. The Allett has two little slots at the top of the cash compartment to stow an Allett ballpoint micro-pen you can buy separately, but as is, the slots are a waste of some vertical space.
Dimensions: 3.125 inches by 3.8 inches
Thickness when filled with six cards and two bills: 0.59 inch
Card slots (not including cash pocket): two
Material: leather and nylon
Colors: oxblood, navy, black, brown, red
Warranty: one year
