As in cheap, perfunctory, and thoughtless.

In a previous column I mentioned owning only two knives, or suitably knifelike objects, that I received without actually wanting them. This is the second one.

This presents the usual difficulty in showing off a generic knife, because typically I can just say that I have a Manufacturing Co. Model XYZ or whatever and there is at least some hope that A) people will know what the bleeding hell I’m talking about, and B) find an example of it out there in the world, even if it is just in the form of more reviews of now-discontinued knives.

With this, I have no such capability. I have no idea who makes this or what it was called. You can’t ask for it by name even if you wanted to. And it’s certainly old enough that I can no longer find incarnations of it being sold via any of the usual Chinese drop-ship bottom feeders. The closest I can find in these modern times is this “Elk Ridge” folder, and this “Sarge Knives” model, both of which are clearly the same idea but neither of which are an exact match.

So rejoice; this knife may be well and truly extinct.

It’s all academic anyway. You don’t want one of these. It’s absolute flea market crap of the worst kind.

I ordered a couple of knives from somewhere back in the day and this arrived as a “free gift,” unannounced and unsolicited, with my purchase. I think it was from BudK, but I could be wrong. Obviously its shtick is that it has two blades on it: One absolutely ghastly mostly serrated blade, and one “razor” blade that is of course astoundingly useless for its implied purpose.

The “razor” blade is just a regular cheap pocketknife blade, but with a square profile. It predates the current stupid Joker razor fad by a couple of decades, but this arrived precisely at the time when the Johnny Depp/Sweeny Todd movie was the height of fashion so back then every damn fool thing was pretending to be a straight razor for a while. Notably, the razor blade lacks any of the features actually required to work for shaving. It’s hilariously dull, for a start, but it also doesn’t have the deep hollow grind that a traditional straight razor has and indeed requires to achieve its microscopic edge. A real straight razor doesn’t have much if any of a secondary bevel, and certainly not one as thick, pronounced, and obtuse as this one. The surface finish is also so abysmal that it would actually be actively detrimental to its performance. I think more work would be required to get this shaving fit than it would be to build a new razor from scratch, so forget it. And even if you did, nobody knows what kind of steel this is made out of and that’s usually a strong indicator that it won’t hold any kind of edge for very long.

But that’s not what it’s for. What it’s for is to bamboozle uneducated buyers into effectively setting their money on fire.

The normal blade somehow manages to be even worse. It’s exactly 3" long and about two thirds serrated, of course with the usual trashy chisel grind. It is poorly machined, has a terrible surface finish just like the other blade, and because it’s got those dumb 1-2-1-2 serrations down most of its length it’d be a hassle to make sharp even if you wanted to.

This is a slip joint folder, meaning that neither blade locks open in any way. The mechanism is very crude and the action is extremely stiff. Opening the serrated blade with one hand is tough, but opening the razor blade with one hand is downright impossible. I suspect the pivot is riveted rather than utilizing any type of screw, but it’s underneath the rubber overmould which doesn’t come off, so I can’t tell.

The entire knife is wonky. The assembly is off-kilter, and neither of the blades open straight. If you peer down its length you can see it’s slightly corkscrewed. A simple brass sheet divides the two blades when they’re closed, although…

…The mechanism is so twisted that if you try to open both at the same time they actually collide with each other.

There is no model, but the country of origin is obvious even if it didn’t say so. If “Stainless” is the most compelling feature a manufacturer can tell you about their knife you are probably looking at a problem. The medallion on the handle also just says “Stainless.” It looks like it ought to be a brand, but it isn’t. This is surely a case of monkey see, monkey do. Real knives put a shiny emblem there, so we’ll put a shiny there, too. Never mind what it says.

The Inevitable Conclusion

It’s clear why these were being given away, since obviously its vendor was having trouble selling them for actual money. So why, then, do I even keep this piece of shit around?

As a warning from history. You see, this is an inglorious time capsule, describing the way all cheap knives used to be back in the bad old days. It still serves as a concise illustration of most of the design and construction details you’ll find on a shoddily constructed knife. Absolutely everything about it is wrong. Every single aspect is a warning sign, and to see it – or better still, to hold it – is to immediately and intuitively understand what all those signs are. The awful surface polish, the pock marks and rust spots fresh from the factory, the halfassed edge grind, the lack of serviceable hardware, the shoddy etching, totally nameless, and with the grinning implication from its anonymous origin that it’s more than it actually is. Oh yes, it’s all there.

You’ve heard of the ur-example. This is an un-example. Precisely not what to buy, under any circumstances, for any purpose. No matter how desperate you are. You’d be better off sharpening a rock.

So in retrospect, I’m glad I got this one for free.