Actually, I don't consider CASE and GEC to be "pocket jewelry".
I could see how that could be taken wrong. I didn't meant to offend.
KOA knives are plain, simply made, and have no bling at all. He offers no bubinga, cocobolo, zircote, bocote or any other exotic woods, much less two different kinds of ebony. He doesn't offer highly polished blades, some with the names of favorite cowboys or country western legends boldly etched on the main blade. There are no fancy shields on his knives, much less choices of shields to match up with one's favorite scale materials. He doesn't offer a knife in bone, much less with a knife that come in different colors of bone ("rotten banana", "appaloosa", etc.) with different patterns of jigging. There are no mirror polished bolsters with finely etched registration numbers carefully etched on them. None of his scales glow in the dark.
A look at his site reveals that all his knives are made for utility value. Nothing else. The blade shapes alone let you know what they are for, and almost all of his line of "tools" are offered as fixed models only. His pocket knives look like they are made to take to the car wash for cleaning after use, and they are all made from tool steel and hafted with G10, micarta, or something similar that is almost impervious to wear. His knives don't develop patina, don't wear much from use and frankly, aren't all that attractive to look at. But you pick one up, and you know you have a completely unadorned, no nonsense, ready to work tool in your hand that is made for years of reliable use.
His offerings remind me of my favorite work knives made by Kershaw. The are simply a handful of parts screwed together around a blade to make a knife. Not much to go wrong, and built to take a beating and keep coming back with little maintenance. Hard to mess up a good stainless blade, takes seconds at a polisher to restore, and G10 handles take years to show wear.
Comparing those to all the pretty knives we see here that look like jewelry to me, KOA's knives have the appeal of a hammer in a hardware store. If I needed a hammer, I would certainly give his implements a hard look. However, I don't see any point in carrying one around if I don't need it.
That all being said, I love my "pocket jewelry". I really like the differences in bone offerings on a knife, I like the high polish of a new knife (satin... not so much...) as it reminds me of my CASE/Boker knives of almost 50 years ago. I like wood on scales, stag, and even black and yellow delrin on some models. So while I always have my "ugly as a mud fence" work knives with me all week, I also have nice piece of pocket jewelry in my right front pocket I enjoy carrying. I have for 50 years. No reason to carry an ugly knife unless you have to.
Robert
