Anyone know who invented

Moondrop

Moondrop

Joined
Sep 19, 2001
Messages
817
the thumb stud? Nail nick? Or lanyard hole?

I tried using both Bladeforums' own search and Google and came up empty. Either there isn't anything or I phrased my searches incorrectly. Even the "experts" who like to edit Wikipedia don't seem to know.

In all the discussion of knife features, I've never seen anyone claim to know where any of those particular ones started.

Have they become so common that we don't think about them at all? The thumb stud's actually been in my mind for quite some time. I only started to wonder about the lanyard hole after watching Ankerson's video on lanyard safety a little while ago. The nail nick I've wondered about almost as long as I've wondered about the thumb stud.

Several of my folding knives have thumb studs. Most of the rest have nail nicks. Almost every last one has a lanyard hole or some other way of attaching a lanyard (such as the little split ring on most SAKs). I haven't got a clue where or when these things were invented.
 
Lanyard holes and nail nicks have been around for centuries. I doubt anyone knows who invented either. Thumbstuds you might still be able to find an origin for, but I don't know what it is.
 
yablanowitz said:
Lanyard holes and nail nicks have been around for centuries. I doubt anyone knows who invented either. Thumbstuds you might still be able to find an origin for, but I don't know what it is.
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Lanyards have probably been around about as long as knives have.
 
GWashington1732 said:
Lanyards have probably been around about as long as knives have.
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Yeah, when very first stone knife was made, soon after happened very first knife loss. Ever since then people have thought how to prevent losing knives. I am sure lanyards are very old design.
 
The first thumstuds I ever saw/heard of, were the 'bolt-on' type available for the Buck 110, back in the '70s (maybe earlier). The stud had a notch in the side of it, wide enough to fit over the spine of the blade, and a screw was tightened to snug it down. I think those ones were referred to as 'Bandit' openers. I have no idea who actually invented it (or, at least, who was first to actually patent it).

I'm betting an awful lot of innovations for knives started in somebody's workshop/garage, and the 'inventor' of record was savvy enough to notice it and file a patent (regardless of whose original idea it actually was).
 
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What O.W.E. said.

Buck, bolt-on, thumbstuds (thank you Leroy, the most excellent Buck custom craftsman, for these):

06-21-20102nd001.jpg
 
Mr Bernard Levine said:
The "original" thumb stud was the Pellett lift, patented in 1892.
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you can learn something new all the time around Bladeforums :D
 
ron_m80 said:
you can learn something new all the time around Bladeforums :D
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I googled the 'Pellett lift', found some interesting info & pics on 'another forum' (I won't be so uncouth as to cross-link it here).

That's pretty cool. Looks a lot like the thumb discs seen on some fairly high end knives these days (like Emerson, Terzuola).
 
Moondrop said:
Mind if I ask what kind of search phrase brought that up?
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I was part of a thread and that came up in discussion.

EDIT: I posted in a thread, and that came up in the discussion. (reworded)(have you ever gone back and read "find all posts" by yourself?)
 
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Spyderco has a pantent on damn near everything that's happened in recent knife design it seems like.
 
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