Please indulge my obsession with the history of Tom Bihn products

[Janine]

I am considering an Empire Builder, so of course I searched the forums for posts and threads about it. I found this:

Empire Builder

which is a very entertaining read. And it has a post by Tom! And it has mention of Pink Floyd! And the names of colors long departed...including PLAID!

Now I'm all kinds of curious about old Tom Bihn stuff. Can someone tell me when the forum was started? I have a mind to read some of the earliest posts.

TIA!

ps. PLAID!

[moriond]

Hi Janine,

I figure that if you check when Darcy joined (May 2003) that's a pretty good indicator of when the forums started. The old forum software from a few years ago used to let you search by date range. I know that I read forum posts for quite some time before ever joining as a member.

moriond

Addendum: OK, I went back and checked the Internet Archive's Wayback machine. The first snapshot of the Tom Bihn site that has a mention of the forums under "News & Events" is the one from April 20, 2003; the snapshot taken a few weeks earlier doesn't mention the forum -- so a start date around the end of April/beginning of May 2003 seems correct. And one of my earlier forum posts about finding pictures of bags, links an Italian site that reviewed the ID Messenger bag in May 2003. I'm impressed that the tracked link I provided still works, especially since I had to pull in the archived site page and run it through Google Translation.

Here's the announcement that appeared under News & Events:

Now Open! Tom Bihn Forums

Be one of the first members of our new forum! Not just about Tom Bihn Bags (but we'd love it if you posted about the bags, too) the forum is for everyone and everything from Mac to PC issues to Sartre to La Bottine Souriante. It's not exactly a bustling area of diverse discussion yet, but we hope people like you will make it just that.

[backpack]

Maybe it would be good to have a "Tom Bihn Bags Virtual Museum" on the Main Page and maybe a display case at the Showroom presenting a Vintage Tom Bihn Bag available for viewing. The display could be rotated every month or every six months. :)

[Janine]

Addendum: OK, I went back and checked the Internet Archive's Wayback machine. The first snapshot of the Tom Bihn site that has a mention of the forums under "News & Events" is the one from April 20, 2003; the snapshot taken a few weeks earlier doesn't mention the forum -- so a start date around the end of April/beginning of May 2003 seems correct. And one of my earlier forum posts about finding pictures of bags, links an Italian site that reviewed the ID Messenger bag in May 2003. I'm impressed that the tracked link I provided still works, especially since I had to pull in the archived site page and run it through Google Translation.

Here's the announcement that appeared under News & Events:

Now Open! Tom Bihn Forums

Be one of the first members of our new forum! Not just about Tom Bihn Bags (but we'd love it if you posted about the bags, too) the forum is for everyone and everything from Mac to PC issues to Sartre to La Bottine Souriante. It's not exactly a bustling area of diverse discussion yet, but we hope people like you will make it just that.

You are amazing, @moriond! Thank you!

[moriond]

Hi Janine,

I am considering an Empire Builder, so of course I searched the forums for posts and threads about it. I found this:

Empire Builder

which is a very entertaining read. And it has a post by Tom! And it has mention of Pink Floyd! And the names of colors long departed...including PLAID!

If you want to see what the plaid looked like, here's a link to the color swatches that were offered at that time. The pictures of displayed swatches weren't always up to date, since I remember some of the swatches not being available around that time. For example, I never saw an option for titanium as a color combination on the purchase pages when I checked. I have a Periwinkle pouch. It dates from the 2007 blog post offering pouches in limited edition colors. Plaid was never a color option for the Empire Builder in my recollection.

I remember reading through some of the posted comments about the Empire Builder in your linked thread, since I was ordering one for someone who had the Lands End Square Rigger mentioned in one review. There weren't so many pictures of bags on the web site at that time, so we used to read through the forum posts for links to sites with pictures and reviews. There was a great set of pictures of the Empire Builder that showed how effective contrasting colors in the interior could be. Alas, that link didn't stay active for more than a few months, since the owner took down the pictures.

moriond

[Janine]

Thank you for the links! I love the picture of the 3 purple pouches!

I don't know why plaid cracks me up so much. I keep glancing over at my not-Storm MCB and wondering what it would look like with a plaid interior. PLAID! Not the high-tech grid of Dyneema, but good, old-fashioned, flannel-looking plaid. Crazy!

[backpack]

Thank you for the links! I love the picture of the 3 purple pouches!

I don't know why plaid cracks me up so much. I keep glancing over at my not-Storm MCB and wondering what it would look like with a plaid interior. PLAID! Not the high-tech grid of Dyneema, but good, old-fashioned, flannel-looking plaid. Crazy!

I thought your fabric was the Periwinkle, that is why I asked for a close-up shot. :)

[moriond]

I thought your fabric was the Periwinkle, that is why I asked for a close-up shot. :)

The periwinkle and plum fabrics shown in the 2007 blog post offering pouches in limited edition colors are in ripstop nylon which has a woven texture that is unlike the regular tight weave of the Cordura. I don't know whether you can see it in that linked 2007 blog post, but a closeup of a periwinkle pouch in ripstop nylon is shown in the Mini Organizer Pouch Fits the iPhone Perfectly blog post from July 2007. If you zoom in you can see the weave in the fabric. I bet that the plaid swatch and the swatch labeled "sparkles" were of some fabric that was not Cordura. I don't remember seeing any periwinkle fabrics apart from the ripstop nylon shown in the limited edition colors post.