Anyone have any suggestions? I just want a very good quality pocket knife–can be as simple as one blade, or a simple multi-tool–I don’t need the Swiss Army knife with 36,000 different gadgets involved. The key thing is that it be very good quality, I don’t want to go pick out a junky knife that’s going to wear out or not be able to keep a good edge on the blade. I also don’t want to go buy the highest price knife and find out it’s pricey because of the name and not due to quality.
Anyone have a type they prefer?
What are you going to use it for, and how would you prefer to carry it? Any price range, other than “not too pricy?”
For what I deal with every day, I carry a Leatherman Juice S2 on my belt, a Leatherman Squirt in one pants pocket, and a Gerber Truss in the other pocket. usually the most I have to do is deal with a stubborn copy machine or do field repairs on a student’s shoes.
Victorinox, the manufacturer of Swiss army knives, also sells very basic pocket knives like this one. I like my own Victorinox very much.
My Swiss Army knife has stood me through an awful lot. You don’t have to buy one with a zillion different gadgets on it if you don’t want. There are very simple ones on the market, and one of them might suit you.
Before you buy a knife, the main things to consider are: 1) How long do you want the thing to last? and 2) What functions do you really want or need?
If you’re the kind of person who’s likely to lose your knife going through airport security, and you fly on a regular basis, be honest about that with yourself. The main difference between a cheap knife and a good knife is durability. If you’re probably going to have to buy a new knife every year or so, don’t bother spending your cash on a good knife. On the other hand, if you really think you’re going to be able to keep the knife for years, it’s worth putting some money into a great knife that’ll take all kinds of abuse.
Be honest with yourself about what features you really need. For instance: Are you using this thing in the outdoors? Do you want to be able to, say, clean fish with it? In that case, you’ll want the little scaler knife. Or are you thinking of using it indoors to do small repairs? If so, make sure you’ve got a couple different screwdriver options, but you probably don’t need the little scaler. Once you’ve settled on your set of features, stick to it. Don’t let yourself be influenced by the knife/tool packaging or advertising of the do-it-all products on display at the hardware store influence your idea of what it is you want.
As usual, silenus in dead on. What is your use mostly. For awhile I was helping a friend set up his warehouse and opening a bunch of cardboard boxes. They were killing my blades. Bought a few of those inexpensive ones with the black plastic handle and curved blade and I’d throw them away when I had sharpened them down too thin.
Had a nice mid-size skinner made with elk horn handle and engraving. Too nice to use.
Now I have a Walmart 5" fixed blade in a sheath on my hip. I cut and strip wires, open packages and use it as a screwdriver on occasion. Sharpens up really well and has a strong blade for use as a pry bar. I’ve used it A LOT for over a year and when it’s shot I’ll pitch it and pay $10 for another one.
I just realized that my last sentence was unintelligible. I said:
What I meant to say was:
Don’t let the knife/tool packaging or advertising influence your idea of what it is you want.
Ahh where to begin… Well it does depend on what you are using it for. For Instance…
I have a Gerber folding pocket knife that holds a good edge and it a good all around pocket carrier.
But for hiking, and knocking around the wood shed out back I have a Buck Alpha Dorado . Which for a folding knife is one of the most rugged folers that can hold an edge that I have ever owned. I’m serious about a good solid blade, and this knife has NEVER let me down. I can pry a metal screw off a aluminum radiator with this bad boy. 
Now for evenings out with my wife and for elegant dinner parties I carry the Kershaw Splinter 1480 - wow what a knife. It’s non-assisted blade and Quince qood handle make it a must have for those dinner party nights and non-abrasive outings.
Hope this helped.
that would be Quince Wood handle…
Serrated blades are good for cutting rope, and not much else. (IMO, of course) They are a pain to sharpen. Straight simple blades work well, and are much more likely to be sharp when needed.
Speaking of which, my My Lansky sharpening set is the best think that ever happend to my knives.
Oh yeah. Just remembered a consideration I’ve always had to make. What type of work are you doing when you need it? I often had paint or grease/oil or some such on my hands and it was not goood to reach down into a pocket and fish around for a knife. Also, I often only had one free hand so you may want a fixed blade, a spring assisited blade or at the least one of those little knobs on the blade to throw open with your thumb. Some folders now have a small clip on the side to keep it at the top of your pocket.
This is my Victorinox. Simple, light, slim, sharp. I got it for about half the site’s price at Target.
Important to me is the ability to lose it and not want to tear out what’s left of my hair because of it. It’s why I don’t own an iPod but have a 256 MB mp3 player that only cost me around $20.
Equally useful is my Leatherman Micra which I use almost daily. I have it attached by a short lanyard to my Mini-Mag Light.
I’ve got a Leatherman Micra on my keychain that’s great for minor cutting, screwdrivering, tweezering, and snipping- it’s got scissors instead of pliers, and I find that I need the scissors much more often than pliers. It’s about ten years old and I’m only now starting to notice rust (I’ve never taken care of it beyond an occasional sharpening), and it keeps a decent edge, which is good because it’s a pain to sharpen. Only major drawback I’ve found is that the tiny little blade on the thing isn’t always big enough to be useful.
Nic2004, aren’t spring assisted blades illegal? Not that I wouldn’t agree with you that one would be useful, just that it might be hard to find.
And in answer to myself, switchblades, or spring-assisted knives, are not illegal to own in the US, merely illegal to sell interstate. Check your local laws too, because they are illegal in some localities. Unless, of course, you have only one arm. There’s a provision in the law for that.
It varies from state to state of course but there is frequently a distinction in the law between a switchblade and an assisted-opening knife.
A switchblade is opened by action on a device typically on the handle, while an assisted opener uses a thumbstud in the blade–you have to use your thumb to open the blade part of the way, and then the mechanism opens the blade the rest of the way. I know that Texas law makes a distinction based on the mechanism used to open the blade, and many of the statutes from other states that I have read make a similar distinction.
I’d second the Swiss Army Knife recommendation… I prefer Wenger myself, but they are becoming hard to find. (It is my understanding that they are now a subsidiary of Victorinox.) I’ve had a simple Wenger for 15 years of fairly constant carry, and the only way to tell that it isn’t new is that the Swiss Cross on the case is getting faded. You can’t really go wrong with Wenger or Victorinox… unless it’s just too big to carry…
Note that just because it’s a multi-blade knife with a red cross on it, it’s not necessarily a Swiss Army knife… there’s a lot of cheap knives out there that just don’t hold up well.
I have one of those. I also have a couple of similar ones with plastic scales (one is black, and the other is red). Any of them are good pocket knives. Not too big, and they have all the tools most people need.
Only the Victorinox that has gotten the most use is the little one with a one-inch blade and a little nail file/straight-blade screwdriver that used to live on my car key ring. Just the thing for slicing open boxes and such. I took it off for a flight, and never got round to putting it back on.
I have two knives close at hand in my apartment. One is a Swiss Champ. I only ever use the small blade on it, except on the rare occasion I might need another tool. It’s too big to carry in my pocket. I have a Champion (an older version of the Swiss Champ that I got 25 years ago) in the glove box of my car. The other at-hand knife is a Case 31048 SS. It’s slim and light, and fits very nicely in the pocket. I used to carry it all the time.
Bascially, decide what you want to use a knife for and then get a knife that fits. The Champion comes in handy when I need a tool quickly. It was great on the film set. The tiny Victorinox, as I said, was very handy for slicing the tape on boxes. As long as I had my keys, I had my knife. I’ll often put my Gerber multi-tool in my vest pocket if I’m on a film/video shoot. You never know when you might need pliers.
Interestingly the one time I had to have a knife I didn’t have one. A wire broke on my older bike and it thought the kickstand was down and shut off the engine. I have a P-38 can opener on my house key ring (not my apartment key ring, which I’m currently using), and it’s about as sharp as a particularly dull rock. But I was able to mangle – I mean strip – the wire enough to ground it and get the bike running until I could get it into the shop.
Wow, thanks for all the replies!
To answer the key questions, mainly I’d be using it for cutting random things when I don’t have ready access to scissors–easy stuff, strings, boxes, leather straps or lacing. Might be nice to have a bottle opener or little screwdriver, but those are really the only “extras” I’d ever use. The little thumb knob for one-handed opening is nice, though.
I don’t mind spending a reasonable amount–I don’t need a solid gold, diamond encrusted handle or anything 
but I do want a knife that’s going to last approximately forever. I’d want to buy the kind of knife I can someday pass along to a kid or grandkid.
I’d prefer a pocket-sized knife–while I wouldn’t mind putting it on my belt, I just imagine the more inconspicuous the better.
Here you go then. Mine is over 25 years old and still going strong.
I actually own a Leatherman Micra. The second time my car was broken into, the punks left it in the back seat. Since they didn’t actually steal anything, I try to imagine that they just wanted to leave me a present.