My carry pair for the last 6 months has been the Small Tinker in my watch pocket and a small fixed blade on my belt. The most carried has been the Condor Compact Kephart and I occasionally carry a Arno Bernard Squirrel. The result of having the fixed blade on my belt is that I use the SAK much less for cutting. I still keep a Leatherman Squirt on my car key chain. It frankly has not been used much in the last few months but I won't change the setup. If I change the Squirt it will be a LM Style without a blade.
I've been flirting with the small pocket fixed blade as an 'un-folding pocket knife' but I'll carry one for a while then go back to just dropping a small SAK in a pocket and calling it good. I just don't run into any heavy duty cutting jobs where a small fixed blade is going to give me a clear cut advantage in what I need a knife for in my day to day suburbanite life style. If I'm off in the woods, my old Buck 102 is on my belt, but in town its just excess baggage. The pocket size fixed blades like the Boker gnome is not any better than my 2 inch bladed executive for slicing a bagel or cutting a sandwich n half. But the executive, or what I now call it, the Chuck Yeager Sierra knife has a huge advantage over any small fixed blade;
CONVIENIANCE!
I guess I just don't live an adventurous enough life to justify taking up pocket space with a small fixed blade. I've tried it and always go back to the regular slip joint pocket knife. If I'm going to put it only belt, why go with something that small with a blade no longer than a regular pocketknife? And my belt is getting too crowded anyways. My cell phone in on my belt, as is my Ruger LCR when I carry it. If I don't carry the Ruger, thats because my NAA mini revolver is in my right hand pocket in its DeSantis pocket holster which means my right hand pocket is now taken up with small revolver and speed strip of spare ammo. That leaves my coin pocket, which holds my CYS knife just fine.
I guess i'v gone conventional in my old age.
I guess theres a reason folding knives took over the knife market post civil war. Just no need for the fixed blade. Heck, according to records in Harold Petersons old book "American Knives" that had shipping records for trading posts and stores, the most popular knife shipped west after 1850 was the John Russell Company Barlow. It seems like it was in the pockets of more cowpokes pushing a heard of cattle up the Chisholm Trail or freight wagon drivers going over Raton Pass, or even Mississippi River boat pilots like a certain Samuel Clemens who later wrote about his river adventures under the name of Mark Twain.
If a two blade Barlow was good enough for Mark Twain in all his travels, a CYS knife should do for this old fart in the wilds of Texas Hill country.
