tactical folders

Well, folding knives as weapons and emergency tools isn't new. Bob Terzuola is credited with making the first modern tactical folder the TTCF (right guys?). Then again Spyderco came out with the CLIPIT and Spyderhole concept in the 80's.
 
How about Al Mar and his Folding SERE Attack knives of the 1980s? I had one of the BIG ones, which I sold to a very happy BF member, and it was certainly tactical with a vengeance and it preceded the craze by several years.

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Walk in the Light,
Hugh Fuller

[This message has been edited by FullerH (edited 11-24-2000).]
 
I have a theory on success; that is, often times the 'glory guy' is not the 'first guy.' For example, Elvis is remembered for hits actually recorded by black blues singers years before. If you took a poll, I'll bet most folks are like me, and didn't even know there were things as tactical knives until Emerson came out with the CQC-6 and people used it in the Gulf War. It's only in doing research that I learned about Terzuola.--OKG
 
While I agree Terzuola is an early proponent, I think several makers in the eighties began making the knives we now call "tactical". Its like asking who invented rock 'n' roll - no one individual did it. Clearly, by the mid- to late 1980's the breed came into being. That ground swell turned into a breaking wave with the advent of chisel ground tantos, Bob's thumb discs, and adopting Walker's liner lock in titanium. The funny thing is now everyone is making these same no-frills workers in damascus, pearl, etc.
 
Pretty sure Paul Fox was doing what was then considered tactical stuff back in the 70's.
Bob
 
Interesting question. Paul Fox was making some crazy stuff way back...As for the current G-10 handled, Ti-lined folder, that definitely goes to Bob Terzuola.

But was is a tactical folder?

--dan

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I can remember back before the term "Tactical Folder" was coined and everyone I knew was carrying a Buck 110. In my mind that would be the original "Tactical Folder".

In custom terms, I'd have to give the nod to Ernie and Bob T.
 
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