“In some markets," Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of Victorinox explained, "the blade creates an image of a weapon."
Anyone who has ever owned a Swiss Army Knife -- I've had one since I was 12, and joined the Boy Scouts -- knows that it is not in any way a weapon. It's below three inches in length and the blade doesn't lock. It doesn't even look like a weapon, it looks like the simple tool that it is.
Knives are one of the most useful tools ever invented, which is why literally every human society has always invented it. Some people are so scared of weapons that they want to eliminate things that don't even look like weapons but might be imagined to look like weapons, even though they're not functional as weapons.
9 comments:
BTW, they make a lot of specialty pocket knives. The Equestrian has a tool for cleaning hooves, for example.
https://www.victorinox.com/en-US/Products/Swiss-Army-Knives/Large-Pocket-Knives/Equestrian/p/0.8583
I'm not sure it's worth $65, but the point is, they make a lot of special market stuff, which is all the Jetsetter is.
I'm not oppose to selling one (although I'll bet TSA would confiscate it anyway). I'm just opposed to the idea expressed by the CEO.
Really smart to put a wine corkscrew and a bottle opener on that Equestrian one.
I've seen comments on this news, elsewhere, claiming the SAK blades are inadequate for knife fights because, it was claimed, the blade doesn't lock open. Well, that depends on the model. Mine, the 111 mm frame, locks the blade and (for some reason) the bottle opener.
Someday I hope to afford a custom or "bespoke" set. The SAK I carry most has the best compromise of tools, but ... I give up the scissors, for instance, to get the woodsaw. I have the Phillips-head driver in the slot often used for a, here-missing, corkscrew. Only one end of the scales hold tools: toothpick and tweezers. Some hackers put a tiny ballpoint pen or a needle-and-thread into a new slot cut into the other end. There's a fandom (bunch of fanatics) with youtube video on SAK mods. And it seems to me it isn't THAT hard to change out one of the benign jetset tools to a blade were one so inclined. (Like manufacturing a "ghost gun" in the U.S.)
Well, Victorinox has a lock on the brand, if not the blade. It's anticipation of a stupid law designed to make ordinary citizens a little bit more miserable, and so, soon, ready for the inevitable communist revolution promising to end capitalist immiseration.
I'm just opposed to the idea expressed by the CEO.
Oh, I just assumed that was good capitalism at work. Here's how I read it, with the CEO's internal dialog supplied by my magical crystal ball:
“In some (utterly silly) markets," Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of Victorinox explained, "the blade creates an image of a weapon (HA-HA-HA -- it's only an inch long! How dumb.)." (But we're happy to take their utterly silly money and market the Jetsetter, of which we have plenty, to them.)
You didn't get that internal dialog? Maybe you need to check the batteries on your crystal ball?
Really smart to put a wine corkscrew and a bottle opener on that Equestrian one.
Indeed.
The SAK I carry most has the best compromise of tools, but ...
No compromise! I carry 2. The larger one goes in the backpack.
If you visit the factory, they let you build your own custom SAK.
It’s definitely not a battery issue. My wife will tell you I never could read minds.
The combat photographer David Duncan did a book on the USSR- the photo that stuck with me (bear in mind I saw it 30 years ago) was a village Communist Party meeting, where all penknives, nail clippers etc were collected outside the venue on a tray. The caption was along the lines of, "look how little trust they have in their citizens".
Custom Swiss Army Knives? That's really cool!
Also, today I learned that Victorinox bought Wenger back in 2005. I still have a Swiss Army 1961 (civilian version) with the aluminum scales that I bought in Switzerland as a souvenir when I did a semester there as a student. I guess it's a collectors item now. Knives as travel mementoes is a thing for me.
Post a Comment