Some of you are probably old enough to remember in the 1950's when the magazines like Popular Mechanics had all the various knife ads in the back, and for the most part they were cheaply made knives.
As an 8 year old kid I had seen the Japanese Camp knives with the bone handle and a spoon & fork like in the first 2 pictures........the closed length was about the same as the width of an adult's palm...a fairly good size knife.
The steel was terrible in them and the bone handle was very rough, but to an 8 year old kid who did not even know Swiss Army knives existed and who was a amazed by the tools on a Boy Scout knife I thought they were very cool.
I saw an ad for this knife in the back of a magazine and ordered it.(the only thing it was missing was the knife and fork), but I figured it was the same size as the others I had seen in stores.
Of course back then there was no such thing as the internet and you had to mail your order in and just wait...there was no such thing as package tracking.
I think it took about a month to finally arrive.(seemed like a year to me)
I was so excited when it came.
When I opened the box it was much smaller than the spoon & fork models I had seen in the store, but I still thought it was cool because of all the tools on it.
(You can see the size of it compared to a Swiss Champ in the bottom 2 pictures)
The steel is very cheap and the tools are not good for actual use, but it brings back some great childhood memories of the anticipation of getting it.
That was 59 years ago, but I can remember the excitement like it was yesterday.
Click on bottom 2 pictures for best picture
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