There is a record of Paul Le Paul using a zippered wallet for Cards to Wallet at the May 1950 combined IBM-SAM convention in Chicago; see Hugard's Magic Monthly, Vol. 8 No. 1, June 1950, p. 668 (lower left corner).

In the Oct. 1997 issue of Genii (Vol. 60 No. 12, p. 72), Danny Orleans and Anthony Miller give a history of the Le Paul Wallet, conveyed to them by Ron Bauer. They report that Dick Washington, of Chicago, invented the wallet in the 1950s. It would seem from the HMM report above, that this would have been early 1950 or 1949, shortly after the release of The Card Magic of Paul Le Paul in 1949. Earlier, Edward Marlo confirmed Washington's invention of the wallet in Alton Sharpe's Expert Card Conjuring, 1968, p. 106; and Marlo's Plus Package by Marlo and Nuzzo, 1983, p. 54. Washington used a letters case. Ron Bauer designed less bulky versions, like a calfskin Day Timer organizer wallet. See the Orleans's column for further information.

Mr. Washington, however, had in effect melded Le Paul's “Cards in a Sealed Envelope” with Abbott's "Dollar Bill and Metal Plates", which was marketed in 1937 or earlier; see George Paxton's “A Red Hot” in The Tops, Vol. 2 No. 10, Oct. 1937, p. 25. In the Abbott trick, a borrowed and signed bill appeared between two rubber-banded metal plates that were in turn in a zippered compartment of a rubber-banded wallet. All these approaches rely on the principle of a loading slide, established in the Coin in Ball of Wool and Coin in Matchbox, dating to the 1800s.