Rediscovering Secrid's First Wallet: Introducing the BodyCard

The Search Begins

Little is know about the BodyCard Wallet. This was a time at the early on set of the interent and old websites were never arhcived and photos from the time never uploaded to the internet. The patent, and a few souces including Desk Proto, a CAM Software Company, and suprisingly the original DSI Design website thats still up and running today is all i had to go off. Please excuse the low quality images and other assets included in this article, these are all i had to work with. Hopefully in the future i’ll be able to update this article with better images and gain more information through contacting Secrid themselves.

Introducing the BodyCard Wallet

Introduced in 1997, the BodyCard was Secrid’s first foray into wallet design – and arguably the first true pop-up wallet ever sold. Yet, despite selling over 700,000 units in its heyday, this humble plastic wallet has all but disappeared from memory. Even among wallet collectors and everyday carry enthusiasts, the BodyCard is practically unknown. So let’s dig into the forgotten origin of the pop-up wallet—and the prototype that started it all.

Patent sketches of the BodyCard (fig. 2a & 2b) show its slim, one-piece holder design with a hinged back panel and spring (22/24/26) that keeps cards staggered for browsing (Source).

Born from Design Frustration

In the mid-1990s, Dutch designers René van Geer and Marianne van Sasse van IJsselt were running a product design firm (then called SPIRID). As banks and institutions began rolling out smartcards and chip-enabled IDs, they noticed a growing problem: people were carrying more cards than ever, and traditional leather wallets just weren’t cutting it. Bulky, disorganised, and inconvenient, the classic bifold couldn’t keep up with the digital age.

So the designers asked a deceptively simple question: what if you reimagined the wallet, not as a leather pouch, but as a tool for accessing cards quickly and securely? The result was a 1995 patent for a new kind of card holder – a compact, box-like case that used spring tension and angled geometry to eject cards in a staggered fashion for easy access. Two years later, that concept became a product: the Secrid BodyCard.

Secrid Founders René van Geer and Marianne van Sasse van IJsselt (Source)

Design and Features of the BodyCard

The BodyCard was a plastic cardholder – essentially a small box just slightly larger than a stack of credit cards. It featured a rigid front shell and a hinged rear panel forming the “door” of the case​.

A U-shaped spring inside put pressure on the cards, pushing them against the front so they fanned out slightly when the back was opened - a novel and unique mechism at the time. This allowed users to “leaf through” the cards to quickly find the one they needed much like the popular pop-up wallets we know today (Source).

In terms of construction, the BodyCard’s housing (front, sides, and top) was molded as a single plastic piece, with the back door as a separate hinged part. The interior spring ensured tension on the cards. There are no readily available official specs on its card capacity, but contemporary reports and the patent suggest it could hold around 5–6 cards comfortably.

The overall form was minimalist – essentially a plain, pocket-sized plastic case. Surviving images are scarce, but the patent sketches above give an idea of its look: a rectangular capsule with one corner able to open, and a thumb-sized cutout to help push the cards out.

What Was the BodyCard?

At first glance, the BodyCard looked more like a gadget than a wallet. Made from hard plastic and shaped like a small box, it held up to 6 or 7 cards tightly in a single internal stack. But inside was a clever spring mechanism that applied tension to the cards, pressing them against an angled front wall. When the user applied pressure to the back, the tension would release slightly, and the cards would slide out in a stepped formation, making it easy to see and select each one.

There was no button or lever like Secrid’s later designs – instead, the user would hold the wallet in one hand and push the back panel open with their thumb. Still, the experience was remarkably similar to modern pop-up wallets. Cards didn’t fall out. They stayed secure under tension. And the whole thing fit comfortably in a trouser pocket.

The BodyCard was also designed to be cheap and mass-producible. It sold for around 6 Dutch guilders (about €3 at the time), and could be found near gas station tills and in small convenience shops – placed among impulse buys like lighters and chewing gum. It was, in its way, ahead of its time: a minimalist, practical, card-first wallet in an era still dominated by banknotes and bulky leather. In a blog post written by Rene van Geer himself he echoed this sentiment saying:

”Mobile phones were still a rarity in 1996, the year our first cardholder, the Bodycard, was introduced. The trouser pocket was the domain of cigarettes, tissues and sweets. It was therefore no coincidence that our Bodycard was presented in stores in those early years between displays of chewing gum, cigarettes and disposable lighters”.

Branded BodyCards’ with Europay & French Cigrertte brand Gauloises (Source)

So What Happened to It?

Despite moving hundreds of thousands of units, the BodyCard quietly disappeared in the early 2000s. The reason? Van Geer and van Sasse van IJsselt were still running their design agency full-time. The BodyCard was never intended as a brand launchpad, it was a side project, and when it started taking off, it became a distraction from their client work. Eventually, they halted production and shelved the idea.

In interviews, René and Marianne sometimes reflect on the BodyCard as a learning experience. “A nice example of this is our own Bodycard, which is the first cardholder we made in 1995. It was okay, but it was not a big success,” René admitted in one interview (Source). Van Geer also said in a blog post regarding the evolution of design at the time and the successfull Nokia 3210.”The Nokia 3210 stands out for its soft lines. Suddenly, the Bodycard looks hopelessly old-fashioned with its tight contours” (Source).

It wasn’t until 2008, during an economic downturn, that they revisited the concept. This time, they went all in—refining the materials, improving the mechanism, and launching the Cardprotector under the newly-formed Secrid brand. The Cardprotector was essentially “BodyCard 3.0,” this time executed in sleek metal with a one-motion card ejector mechanism. It went on to win a Red Dot Design Award and catapulted Secrid to international success, something the BodyCard never did. The rest is history: Secrid became a global name, and the pop-up wallet became a category in itself. But the BodyCard? It faded into obscurity (Source).

The current line-up of Secrid Wallet: The MiniWallet.

The Legacy of the BodyCard

Today, very few people have seen a BodyCard in person. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t made from metal or wrapped in leather. But it was revolutionary. It pioneered a user experience that millions now take for granted – quick, secure, fan-out card access from a slim pocket wallet.

The BodyCard deserves recognition not just as Secrid’s first product, but as the first step toward rethinking what a wallet could be. It’s the missing link between old-school card sleeves and the tech-savvy wallets we carry today. And in many ways, it’s the true origin of the pop-up wallet style of wallet.

The BodyCard’s legacy lives on through Secrid’s current products. The company often emphasizes that its “adventure as wallet makers” truly began with that first patent and the BodyCard launch. It established the core idea of a small, durable card case – and proved the Van Geer family’s philosophy that even as technology changes, good design can make carrying your essentials more convenient.

So next time you flick your Secrid open with a satisfying click and watch your cards fan out like magic, remember: before there was Cardprotector, there was BodyCard.

Do you remember the BodyCard?

As far as the BodyCard goes its fair to say it most likely didn’t leave The Netherlands. I’ve searched high and low on the likes of ebay and other auction sites for the BodyCard, but alas, I’ve never found anything. If you own a BodyCard or have any other information regarding this wallet/cardholder them please get in touch it or leave a comment below.

Souces:

• Official Secrid timeline and collection notes (here) (here).
• Patent documents (1995–1997) detailing the BodyCard’s mechanism (here).
• M.T. Sprout (Dutch entrepreneurial magazine) profile of Secrid’s history (here).
• Interview with Secrid team (Set Supply Chain, 2023) on early products​ (here).
• WhatDesignCanDo interview with René van Geer on design & sustainability (here).
• Dutch press interviews and articles on Secrid’s founding and growth​ (here) (here).