Opinel is to France as ______ is to the USA

Pinnah, thanks for your post :-)
The habit of notching or marking a knife (or rifle) after every deer (or other prey) is not new to me at all, I'm no hunter but I know my share of hunters, and I've heard of this habit before.
Still the knife in your first pic looks great, so I'm going to read the thread you posted to widen up my knowledge of modified 110's :)

Fausto
:cool:
 
mnblade said:
Not terribly traditional, I admit. But what about Leatherman? As an American living abroad, I do see Leatherman products for sale a lot. Far more so than Buck or Case which I almost never see. I guess the only other American companies I see an equal amount of would be Spyderco (and most of their products are manufactured in Asia) and Benchmade to a lesser extent.

Just FYI, the two products you'll see in every knife shop in Europe are Victorinox and Opinel.
Click to expand...

I'd have to agree with that. In my own travels in Europe, I never saw Buck knives except in the PX on army or air force bases. Traditional American knives like Schrade, Camillus and others were unknown. But I saw the big Victorinox display everywhere, with the big moving ask in the shop window. Sometimes I saw Boker, or Herters in a case.

Carl.
 
Opinel is to France as Case Cuterly is to the USA (as I would say, that company has a long tradition)

Much countries have a long and good knife tradition. Germany, Sweden, USA and so on and on... Which one is prefered always depends on the taste of the specific knife-user.

Just my 2 Cent.

Kind regards
Andi
 
As a brand, my immediate thought was for Buck (the 110/112, specifically), as the distinctly American counterpart to the Opinel. In terms of the 'spirit of the knife', I also think the Sod Buster style is pretty comparable, although we can't really claim the pattern as American (originally European), aside from the USA-trademarked 'Sod Buster' name.

As mentioned earlier, I've never really thought of the Leatherman tool as a 'knife', per se. More like a pocket toolkit, which has a blade or two thrown in. For me, the Victorinox (or Wenger) SAKs are more elegantly-designed as knives first, but with some pretty thoughtfully-designed supplementary tools included. I like both, and have multiple examples of both, but I don't really see them in the same light, especially when deciding which to put in my pocket.
 
Speaking from over here in the UK I think you're quite spoiled for choice in the US for 'American' knives. Take the Traditional Folders and Fixed Blades' sub section for example, I don't imagine we'd be able to sustain the same thing over on a UK forum:)

Sam
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone. I have been looking a lot at Buck knives as a home grown analog to the French Opinel. I really like the look of the discontinued Bucklite 424, clean simple, functional, just like the Opie.
 
Our local generic big box store still has Buck 482s in the Christmas tins on clearance for $17 if you like light. A better deal may be the Ecolite 112 on sale for $20 on Bucks web deals page.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top