DIY wallet coin tray
A wallet coin tray was DIY fitted to a standard wallet to make coin handling easier in an increasingly cashless world.
Background
Nowadays, wallets are designed for various essential cards and paper money if you still use them instead of a phone. The coin storage and handling features get a low-priority and coin access and selection is not easy. A separate coin purse is an alternative, but who wants another thing added to one’s pocket? In any case, such purses usually do not provide for easy coin selection.
For Dinosaurs like me, I devised a simple fabric coin sorting tray that could be retrofitted into the coin purse on a ‘bog ordinary’ gentleman’s wallet. After opening the zipper, the coins can be quicky pulled out on the tray for easy selection and then pushed back in when payment is made. This little modification can help to prevent coins from accumulating in my wallet during busy transactions.
The retrofitted coin tray for a wallet
Many years ago before the credit card or mobile phone was invented, I once used a little D-shaped coin purse. Instead of having a zipper along the straight side (as shown in the link above), it was hinged along this side. It had a zipper closer for the two halves that went around the curved edges
One curved side had a little raised wall around the curve so that coins would be retained when they were spread over it for coin selection. I thought I could add a similar lightweight and low-volume feature to my new Christmas wallet but It would also need to be very elegant so as not to offend the kind giver.
Using polyester umbrella fabric (leftover scraps of my favourite adventure fabric) I cut out (using a hot knife cutter) a rectangular tray with a D-shaped end. I sewed a ~5mm hem around it so that it was the same width as the inside of the coin purse within the wallet. Next, I threaded some 6mm diameter PVC tubing through the hem to form a coin-retaining barrier.
To attach the coin tray inside the wallet, I turned the purse lining inside-out and sewed the tray to the bottom seam of the pocket lining. With coins loaded on the tray, it can be slid/pushed into the wallet pocket before closing the zipper.
Conclusion
The DIY coin tray is easy to use and allows a quick selection of coins and should help to reduce the accumulation of wallet-busting coins. As a bonus, this improved functionality did not come at the expense of the good looks of the gifted wallet.
With this first design, I was surprised at how easily the tray of coins could be pushed back into the pocket and allow the zipper to be closed. If, during repeated use, I find that it needs improvement in this regard, I will glue (with my favourite contact glue) some stiffening fabric laminates under the outer portion of the coin tray.
Tim
