The runt of the litter very often has a hard road to follow. It gets no respect, and people tend to abuse them since they do not take the runt seriously.
Such is the little classic. At least with me it was so.
I had always looked at the tiny thing like it was some sort of joke. Something for a person who didn't want to carry a 'real' knife. A token exuse of a pen knife. But then I was young and full of myself. After all, I was so manly I carried a Randall 14 as my hiking and camping knife, and in town I had my old Workhorse Wenger SI in my pocket. Real man's knives.
Well, one day my wife Karen comes home from work with this little red thing dangling from her keyring.
"Look what Dave ordered for the client giveaways." she told me.
Dave was her boss, one of the 4 partners of a real estate law firm. They buy all kinds of things from this company that puts their logo on them, to give to clients. Key fobs, little flashlights, pens by the zillion. This time it was a sak knock off with their logo. It was a crude made in China sort of look alike. Did I mention crude? The sissors wouldn't cut paper, it folded it. I had to do something.
"Honey, I really love you, but I have to tell you something. That's not a Swiss Army knife. " I told her as gently as I could. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes I fell in love with decades ago. I took the knife and opened the little main blade.
"Look what it says here." I told her.
She looked at the 'China" stamped weakly into the blades tang.
Of course she was a bit disillusioned. The very next day I stopped off at a Walmart, and for something like 8 dollars back then I bought a real classic. I gave to to Karen and even she instantly saw the huge difference. She took it to her boss the next day and Dave got on the phone to the ad company and told them not to send anymore knockofffs. To his credit, he did buy a big box of the real classics with the firms logo on them. I guess he had to have had some smarts to pass the bar exam.
Well, of course Karen now had a real classic on her keyring. I still wouldn't think of carrying one, being a manly man, a tiny toothpick was not in the cards. But over the next year or so, I watched my better half do things with that little classic that I wouldn't do with my 'real' knife. I'd cringe, expecting any moment to hear a metalic snap or ping of breaking steel. Women of course thing nothing of abusing tools, so Karen went right on using her little classic as if it were a 'real' sak. instead of a joke.
The joke was on me.
That tiny little red losenge of a knife never quit, never broke, never failed to do what Karen was asking of it, even to the point of abuse. I couldn't help myself, I found admiration creeping into my thoughts on classics. I started to study Karen's use of the classic with great care, noting what she was cutting/prying/scraping/or otherwise molesting. It was then the I thought of the experiment. How would a classic do for a man.
Without telling anyone, I bought one and stuck it on my keyring. I quickly found out this was an inconvienent way to use a knife, so I put a snap hook on my keyring so I could detach the classic in a second for use without the keys attached. I made it a point to make myself use the classic first if I had to use a pocket knife. And I used the heck out of it. Oh, I still had my old SI or my old Buck stockman in my pocket for 'real' use if the classic failed.
But it didn't.
Time crept by, and after some months, I realized the only place where the classic was not enough knife was in food service and on heavy wood while camping. The little inch and a half blade couldn't cut a sandwich in half for me and Karen to share, and there wasn't enough handle to hang onto while cutting on wood, like making a hiking stick out of a small downed sapling. Okay, how often do I do that? And I usually have a larger knife with me in the woods anyhow let alone the Gerber/Fiskars sliding blade saw in the daypack. Otherwise, much to my surprise, the little classic did everything I had to do. It opened the UPS boxes, mail, cut jute twine for the tomato plants out back, opened big bags of dog kibble, opened 50 pound bags of mulch or top soil for landscaping projects, opened those damm plastic blister clamshell packages, and much more. And I did find it useful to have small sharp sissors on hand, as well as the SD tip that would handle small and even medium phillips screws with ease. I got very used to having those few extra tools in a tiny keychain pen knife. One day, very much to my surprise, I found myself thinking fond thoughts of the classic. I had grown to, ( cough, cough,) like the little thing.
One day, I was at the gun show up in Westminter Maryland, and there was this lady who had boxes of TSA confiscated knives. Lots of sak's. She had tons of classics in a box to themselves. For 2 dollars a knife, I bought several. I ended up keeping one on me for a giveaway knife. When I saw someone trying to open a box with a key, or the like, I loaned them the 2 dollar sak, and when they went ot give it back, I told them they could keep it for a coin. Of course they all jumped at it. It was my way of getting non knife people converted to 'our' side. Kind of like Giddeons Bibles of knifedom.
My Randall is long now, and I guess I'm not the man I used to be. I carry a classic, and it's the first knife I go for when I need to cut/snip/screw/lightly pry something these days. I've grown to love the little classic. My old war horse Wenger SI does a lot of stand by duty in the sock drawer. My back up knife a great deal of the time is a alox bantam, or even an alox solo I made an easy opener out of. I've found that a modern sububan man can do a great deal with a little classic. Okay, maybe not manly, but effective.
Now I'm going to have a spinich quiche for lunch.
Such is the little classic. At least with me it was so.
I had always looked at the tiny thing like it was some sort of joke. Something for a person who didn't want to carry a 'real' knife. A token exuse of a pen knife. But then I was young and full of myself. After all, I was so manly I carried a Randall 14 as my hiking and camping knife, and in town I had my old Workhorse Wenger SI in my pocket. Real man's knives.
Well, one day my wife Karen comes home from work with this little red thing dangling from her keyring.
"Look what Dave ordered for the client giveaways." she told me.
Dave was her boss, one of the 4 partners of a real estate law firm. They buy all kinds of things from this company that puts their logo on them, to give to clients. Key fobs, little flashlights, pens by the zillion. This time it was a sak knock off with their logo. It was a crude made in China sort of look alike. Did I mention crude? The sissors wouldn't cut paper, it folded it. I had to do something.
"Honey, I really love you, but I have to tell you something. That's not a Swiss Army knife. " I told her as gently as I could. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes I fell in love with decades ago. I took the knife and opened the little main blade.
"Look what it says here." I told her.
She looked at the 'China" stamped weakly into the blades tang.
Of course she was a bit disillusioned. The very next day I stopped off at a Walmart, and for something like 8 dollars back then I bought a real classic. I gave to to Karen and even she instantly saw the huge difference. She took it to her boss the next day and Dave got on the phone to the ad company and told them not to send anymore knockofffs. To his credit, he did buy a big box of the real classics with the firms logo on them. I guess he had to have had some smarts to pass the bar exam.
Well, of course Karen now had a real classic on her keyring. I still wouldn't think of carrying one, being a manly man, a tiny toothpick was not in the cards. But over the next year or so, I watched my better half do things with that little classic that I wouldn't do with my 'real' knife. I'd cringe, expecting any moment to hear a metalic snap or ping of breaking steel. Women of course thing nothing of abusing tools, so Karen went right on using her little classic as if it were a 'real' sak. instead of a joke.
The joke was on me.
That tiny little red losenge of a knife never quit, never broke, never failed to do what Karen was asking of it, even to the point of abuse. I couldn't help myself, I found admiration creeping into my thoughts on classics. I started to study Karen's use of the classic with great care, noting what she was cutting/prying/scraping/or otherwise molesting. It was then the I thought of the experiment. How would a classic do for a man.
Without telling anyone, I bought one and stuck it on my keyring. I quickly found out this was an inconvienent way to use a knife, so I put a snap hook on my keyring so I could detach the classic in a second for use without the keys attached. I made it a point to make myself use the classic first if I had to use a pocket knife. And I used the heck out of it. Oh, I still had my old SI or my old Buck stockman in my pocket for 'real' use if the classic failed.
But it didn't.
Time crept by, and after some months, I realized the only place where the classic was not enough knife was in food service and on heavy wood while camping. The little inch and a half blade couldn't cut a sandwich in half for me and Karen to share, and there wasn't enough handle to hang onto while cutting on wood, like making a hiking stick out of a small downed sapling. Okay, how often do I do that? And I usually have a larger knife with me in the woods anyhow let alone the Gerber/Fiskars sliding blade saw in the daypack. Otherwise, much to my surprise, the little classic did everything I had to do. It opened the UPS boxes, mail, cut jute twine for the tomato plants out back, opened big bags of dog kibble, opened 50 pound bags of mulch or top soil for landscaping projects, opened those damm plastic blister clamshell packages, and much more. And I did find it useful to have small sharp sissors on hand, as well as the SD tip that would handle small and even medium phillips screws with ease. I got very used to having those few extra tools in a tiny keychain pen knife. One day, very much to my surprise, I found myself thinking fond thoughts of the classic. I had grown to, ( cough, cough,) like the little thing.
One day, I was at the gun show up in Westminter Maryland, and there was this lady who had boxes of TSA confiscated knives. Lots of sak's. She had tons of classics in a box to themselves. For 2 dollars a knife, I bought several. I ended up keeping one on me for a giveaway knife. When I saw someone trying to open a box with a key, or the like, I loaned them the 2 dollar sak, and when they went ot give it back, I told them they could keep it for a coin. Of course they all jumped at it. It was my way of getting non knife people converted to 'our' side. Kind of like Giddeons Bibles of knifedom.
My Randall is long now, and I guess I'm not the man I used to be. I carry a classic, and it's the first knife I go for when I need to cut/snip/screw/lightly pry something these days. I've grown to love the little classic. My old war horse Wenger SI does a lot of stand by duty in the sock drawer. My back up knife a great deal of the time is a alox bantam, or even an alox solo I made an easy opener out of. I've found that a modern sububan man can do a great deal with a little classic. Okay, maybe not manly, but effective.
Now I'm going to have a spinich quiche for lunch.
). I've even used the orange peeler/scraper, and I like the nail file a bit better than the Classic's. But I'm thinking that the next time I travel by plane, I'll likely take the little red Classic in my check-in bag as my travel knife. It can't hurt to make your travel knife as inconspicuous/benign as possible while still being highly useful. I'm concerned that even my harmless Executive, being slightly larger than a Classic (and with black scales) but smaller than a standard SAK, might draw more scrutiny from airport security checking the check-in bag. 
