Are Pocket Knives Bigger Than They Used To Be?

G

Gadgetman7

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Sep 30, 2001
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There have been several threads lately about public comfort with pocket knives. I wonder if it's because most people associate the word "pocketknife" with a SAK or stockman type folder.

I have talked to a great number of people who are at least startled by some of the larger folders. I don't want to refer to these persons as "sheeple" because there are many of who have seen combat or served as law enforcement officers. I hink that it's just that their parents and grandparents carried more traditional folders with smaller blades.

What do you guys think? Have pocketknives gotten larger? Do you think this is what is causing some of the negative public reaction? How should we counter these problems?

BTW I typically carry a Spyderco Salsa and leatherman Micra at work with a Victorinox Cybertool. At home and around town it's usually a small Sebenza and one of various multitools or my SwissChamp.
 
Well if all the old folders where the size of an old Buck lockback which has a three inch blade, then something like a CS Vaqeruo Grande will certianly make them uneasy.
 
The Buck 110 is a classic, used by just about everyone at one time or another. Yet it is 4 7/8 inches closed and boasts a blade close to 4 inchs.
Modern folders have gotten bigger, but the colors and blade shape is what really makes them scary to people. The use of black material vs. natural bone or wood is what seems to scare people.
 
Lord No they aren't bigger! Remember the old Cattle Knives?
Some of them check in at 5" closed! Then there is the folding
hunters of old which were all 5" closed. And lets not forget
Rope knives , tooth picks and very large stockmans.
Last but not least was the Marbles saftey folding hunter:eek:
 
...........right front pocket ARE!:eek: :eek: As a youngster I carried either a stockman, barlow, hawkbill, trapper, or the biggest, a Queen melon tester. Now it is a Carson large model 16, a large Classic Sebenza, or currently, a Crawford KFF, in the large flavor of course.

So I would have to say..........BIGGER
 
I don't know I carried a big ole hawkbill knife when i was young, seems like it was as big as any knife i own now, and def. wider.
 
Well, I think they are maybe a bit bigger than what your average guy was carrying years ago. But as someone said, the black handle material is nervous making to some folks. Maybe it makes people think military and police ie. violence and I think that's what scares them. Also some blade shapes have gotten "mean" looking and angular, not like their Daddie's knife.
 
I just purchased the vaquero grande and it scared me when I first opened it. Now everything else seems small including the camp tramp!
 
I think "Pocket Knives" in the very traditional sense of being carried in the pocket have gotten larger (courtesy of pocket clips and lightweight materials), but people have been carrying around massive folders like the Buck 110 in belt sheaths for years and years, I think the only thing that has changed is where that big knife comes from, less belt sheath, more outta the pocket.

To me it's six of one, and a half-dozen of the other, but I can see how folks might have some trouble adjusting to the idea.
 
In my experience with sheeple, they don't like any knife except for kitchen knives and maybe those small keychain SAKs. My CQC-7, Endura, and Victorinox Recruit seem to get the same reactions. People at work who know me don't care but new people act kind of wierd when I use one. It's a good thing they don't know I keep a Cold Steel tanto in my desk and a Newt Livesay Bushi in my pack<G>.
 
No, folders have not gotten larger. A hundred+ years ago we would have had examples of folding bowies which would have outclassed the tactical stuff out there today. Spain in particular has for centuries produced some enormous folders - sometimes with blades approaching full sword sized dimensions.

n2s
 
When I was in high school I saw a movie called "The Mission" which was about a Jesuit mission in South America during the colonial period. One of the actors used a very large folder in a duel.
 
In all fairness, just because there have always been big knives does not mean that all people have always been comfortable with big knives.
I know for a fact that my father always felt that a Buck 110 style folder was too large for my EDC. He always recommended a 31/2-4" handled stockman or electrician's, and sometimes a jackknife. I wouldn't doubt that back in 1860, there were folks who objected to folding bowies.

As for modern folders, tacticals definitely have larger frames than traditional style knives, even when they have blades the same length. Just compare the width of a Delica to that of a typical stockman or jack knife made by any traditional maker. Don't get smart;) , I know that you can find very large traditional knives. I own a few of them.
 
Anthony,

The larger frames and thicker, wider blades, and even tanto points are probably due to the trend in having "indestructable" knives. Even though I don't use my knives as prybars or dig with them, I'll admit to buying ones that could be used like that If they needed to be. During my time in Boy Scouts and reading survival magazines I decided for myself when I was 12 or 13 that if I only had one knife with me, it should be as close to indestructable as it could get.

I used to live in Fairview Heights, ILL. sort of near Collinsville. Do you know if that knife store Heritage Blades and Arms/ Lebonon Cutlery is still around? They had the best prices at the time.
 
Benjamin, you are right. You can't have a supertough tactical and have made the same dimensions as a Schrade stockman. I've never been to the shop in Lebanon. I do my local shopping at Grand Prairie knives in Troy. Illinois.
 
Has anybody seen the latest Crocodile Dundee 4? Did you see THAT folder? WOW!!!! Remember he said, " I just had me folder..."

And the classic saying in the first Crocodile Dundee...."That's not a knife......THAT'S a knife!!!!!" LOL

I remember that my dad always carried a SAK classic pocket knife. It had the two blades and the bottle/tin openers. All his friends had similar pocket knives. So I have to say that in general, yes, "pocket" knives have got bigger and more high tech and therefore more "intimidating"

I have SAK's and small wasps etc where people do not give them a second thought. But when I pull out my CRKT Ryan 7, the almost faint!!!! Yet if I show them my 5" blade diver's knife, they do not give it a second glance.

People will grow used to the modern linerlock folders, and provided we do not get defensive/aggressive with "sheeple", they will grow more tolerant. The only constant in life is change.
 
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