What follows does not pretend to be an “article” or similar, but just few observations (and research) I made on this series, as I’m planning to implement it on the wiki.
Please apologize for my very bad English.
Some months ago, I decided it was finally the time to buy a Ranger 179 with the Patagonian Expedition Race logo.
While looking for more informations, I searched the forum for pictures and comments. I did notice few members posting pictures of the newer knives of the series, but there were no comments on the change of the logo.
This could mean that:
a) everybody did notice the change and it was considered irrelevant, or
b) nobody really notice.
Well, I have to admit that I didn’t notice the change in the logo that happened in 2012, so here few informations that could be hopefully useful to someone else.
1. The Wenger sponsorship of the Patagonian Expedition Race, called from 2009 to 2011 the “Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race”.At the end of 2008, Wenger had agreed a three-year title sponsorship of the Patagonian Expedition Race.
As reported by an old article I found on the website planetfear.com, “
beginning in 2009, the international event - which has become known as "the last wild race" - will now be called the ‘Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race' and the official event logo will carry the Switzerland-based company's famous Swiss flag emblem.
Wenger will supply Swiss Army knives and Swiss watches along with footwear, tents and other camping equipment to the Patagonian Expedition Race. This new association will run through 2011 and is the first title sponsorship of the annual adventure race, which has grown in popularity and awareness since its inception in 2004”.
Here you can see an image of the old (pre-Wenger) logo event
And here is the new logo, which were to be adopted:
Note that both the name “Wenger” and the company emblem were added to the logo.
2. 2010-2011: The first series of the knives, the “WPER”.As a result of the sponsorship, in 2010, Wenger introduced a series of three knives.
There are already tons of pictures and reviews on them, so I’m not going to describe every single knife of the series.
A Rangergrip 179, called “Ranger WPER”
An EvoGrip S18, called “EvoGrip S18.WPER”
An EvoGrip 81 called “EvoGrip 81.WPER”
Note that both the knife names and the catalog have the “WPER” reference, which obviously stands for Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, as explained above.
All the three knives have a special logo imprinted on the rubber scale insert which carries the “Wenger” name on the left, and the inscription “Patagonian Expedition Race” on the right.
It is important to note that the “Wenger” name on the above inscription is NOT directly referred to Wenger as the maker of the knife itself, but as a sponsor of the competition. That’s the reason why the name was later removed (see below).3. 2012. The end of the Wenger sponsorship of the competition. The new series “PER”.As mentioned before, the Wenger sponsorship of the Patagonian Expedition Race lasted for only three years.
As a result, in the beginning of 2012, the series of the knives had some changes implemented:
1) The logo imprinted on the rubbed insert is changed: no more “Wenger” name on it, since the official name of competition was changed from “WPER-Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race” back to “PER-Patagonian Expedition Race”, and the artwork is a little different;
2) The knives of the series had their catalog numbers and names changed from “WPER” to “PER”;
3) The Evogrip S18.WPER, became the EvoGrip S1
6.PER. So in this case, not only the name was changed, but also the knife model, which didn’t feature anymore the wood saw.
Out of interest is the german market, were an additional model was listed, and only for the 2012.
It was a Junior model (a series of knives aimed at kids, with the blade tip rounded), with the official name of Junior Evogrip S18 PER
4. 2013 The end of the series. The german market.I believe that the series was discontinued in later 2012 (beginning 2013), as I could not find any more reference to the Patagonian Expedition Race knives.
As a side note, during 2013 most of the knives were still available in Germany, but with standard yellow scales, without any logo of the Patagonia Expedition Race.
The Ranger knife was listed in the 2013 german catalog as Rangergrip 179.822.
It was just the same model as the “old” 179, but with standard yellow scales.
For those reading french, there is an interesting discussion about this knife in Jean Claude forum
http://www.fans-du-couteau-suisse.com/t870-rangergrip-mysterieuxThe poster was complaining about the lack of the PER logo from the scales. Since the knife was bought from Amazon, I believe that the explanation is the entry in the german catalog above.
The same was for the Evogrip 81, Evogrip S16 and Evogrip 18 (shown, however, with the blade lock).
I think these models were/are only available in Europe.
In North America the Evogrip S18 (with standard yellow scales) had been available with catalog number 16802
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I'm sure there are probably errors, so please let me know if you find any and/or have additional informations.
I'm also not 100% sure that the series was discontinued in 2013, as I have only a 2013 german catalog, but not the European or the North America ones.
I think it was very possible, but can not confirm at the moment.
Sorry for the very long post, but I had all this material ready, so I thought that it could be useful.