My dad always carried just his Case peanut. Only in the last couple years of his life, when arthritis got the better of him, he switched to a little Christy knife.
My UNcle Paul on the other hand, carried those small two blade advertising jacks. Since he was a shop forman in the old Curtis-Wright engine plant in Patterson New Jersey, he had all these little jacks that had mostly cracked ice celluloid scales with logos from tool and die companies, bearing manufactures, tool companies, and such. They were cheap knives, but they did have nice thin carbon steel blades that got razor sharp off the bottom of a coffee cup. Since they were about the size of a peanut, maybe a tiny bit larger, Uncle Paul had them stashed around with spares everywhere. Even had one in his tobacco pouch. The guy carried more of those small jacks than Yancey Derringer carried derringers.
My Uncle Sonny, was my mom's baby brother. He was career air force and was a fanatic on sak's. Wouldn't carry anything else but a sak, preferably one with a saw blade. Must have been a bomber pilot thing. He also carried lots of interesting stuff in his pockets, like dad and Uncle Paul. I think between them, they could fix anything on the run.
Uncle Charlie was wed to his Camillus TL-29. He just wouldn't carry anything else. He said it was in his pocket when he got his feet wet at Normandy, and it stayed with him for the walk to Germany. I brought him home a new one from our supply room when I was in the army, as I'd seen that his old one was getting pretty worn. He loved it, but was disappointed that they had switched from wood to plastic for the scales.
Pretty much every man when I was growing up had a pocket knife on him. It was just expected. The most common by the 1950's was the 3 to 3 1/4 inch serpentine jack with two blades.
Carl.
