Wallet Retrospective #1 The Clic to Open Wallet
A look back at the once patent-pending 'Clic to Open' wallet from 2017.
In the first instalment of my new series, Wallet Retrospective, I’m diving into some of the now-defunct wallets of the past—analysing the good, the bad, and the downright bizarre. I’ll explore why these wallets, and often the brands behind them, failed to stand the test of time and consider whether they’d succeed in today’s market. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the Clic: a wallet that genuinely made me laugh the moment I saw its novelty quick-access feature in action.
The Clic was a classic Kickstarter wallet funded back in 2017. I won’t go into the full story of the wallet craze that swept Kickstarter, but it’s worth noting the Clic launched right at the tail end of that movement. Raising just $5,214, it’s fair to say the project didn’t exactly take off. That said, after browsing through the many wallets crowdfunded that year, the Clic actually stood out to me in a sea of generic, forgettable designs.
It was small, compact, and durable—with a quirky, patent-pending feature that gave it a unique edge. Its entire premise centred around quick card access, achieved through a clever mechanism: pinching the side of the wallet would compress its rubber ends, causing them to flex outward and reveal your cards. It was a fun little idea, and the accompanying promo video did a brilliant job of showing it off (see above).
So what happened to the Clic Wallet?
The Clic was never really in a fantastic position to succeed. It didn’t raise that much money, and by the time this wallet launched in 2017 the wallet market was already pretty saturated with a variety of minimalist wallets just like the Clic.
The Clic did have an official website, but it was never indexed on the wayback machine so there’s no way to know what it looked like or what information it had on it. We can gauge from the kickstarter campaign that the price was going to be $25.00 which was very reasonable for the time for the type and style of wallet. Their facebook page is still live, which has some great promotional images to look at - this can be found here. They last posted on their Facebook page on the 13th of July 2017.
It was clear based on the comments and updates by the team at Clic that they had some teething problems when it came to manufacturing the wallet. I would assume, based on the low number of people who invested in it, that the development and manufacturing of this wallet could have easily been done from the comfort of their home on a small scale. Perhaps they did not go down this route? Who knows.
A search for an old patent
Finally, one of the aspects the guys at Clic boasted about the most was their so-called patent pending design. All Patents, confirmed, denied or expired should still be available to view so I went on a quick search to see if it was still around. Unfortunately all leads have led to a dead end for finding this. I found the name of the creator to be Yang Chen but no information on him or his patent can be found. Alas for now, this one will remain a mystery. A fine example of always trying your luck with a cool idea and concept is better than not.
Could this design make a come back?
So do i think this design has any merit? Obiously its a bit of a gimmick and that plays to the fact this wallet wasn’t particulaly well funded nor suvived outside of its Kickstarter bubble. That being said, this design is a lot of fun and i could see this wallet succeeding as a novelty item or for a specific demographic of people just lookign for something a little different and a little more fun.