Black oxide coating on the LaGriffe

[Cosmic Superchunk]

I don't know what the black oxide coating on the Emerson Lagriffe is exactly, but it is certainly durable. I was looking through various knives in my collection and noticed the wear on some of my coated knives. Some have lots of wear, like my CRKT 1* M16 and a Gerber AR folder which come with a cheap teflon coating that will wear off if you look at it too hard. Next, I have 2 Benchmades with BT2 coating with some wear long the edge of the spine and along the grind lines as well as a few scratches and I have an Black-T coated Emerson CQC7A with some wear due to sharpening as well as along the grind lines. However, my Emerson LaGriffe only shows a few scuff marks on the blade and handle mainly from the sheath and a few bumps here and there. I've had mine for about 7 or 8 months and have carried it off and on. I've used it to cut cord, boxes, paper and it's had it's share of bumps, but the coating is still intact. While it will eventually show more wear as well as scratches if it comes int contact with hard objects, I'm impressed with the durability of the finish. Kudos to the folks at Emerson Knives.