And this my friends is exactly the reason why Wenger should never have sold out to Victorinox Having cloned the brand and sacked most of the workers, victorinox now holds the patents preventing other competition. What we are left with is a stagnant Swiss brand and other companies fearful of infringing copyrights. Exciting isn't it? Yawn ZZzzzz
If there were only one iconic pocket knife, it’d likely be the Swiss Army Knife.
The James Brand wants to replace it. Today, the company released the Ellis, its first multi-tool.
just a partially-serrated blade, a screwdriver that doubles as a bottle opener and a scraper tool. It’s simple, and that’s the point.
That’s also because Ryan Coulter, the company’s founder, and the rest of the team wanted it to be uncluttered, like a Swiss Army, and drew inspiration from the historic brand.
“I always think that Swiss Army has done the best job of making good everyday carry knives and tools that are not positioned in either the tactical or the outdoor space.”
But one of the problems with Swiss Army Knives is that they don’t lock. “There’s always this potential to close the blade on your fingers,” Coulter says.
the team found that adding that simple mechanism complicated things. The release of the Ellis is actually a re-release; the tool first came out a few months back and was quickly recalled. If you pressed on the closed screwdriver/bottle opener while the knife was open, the lock could disengage.
The James Brand reached out to friends and more importantly, consumers, to figure out which to feature in the Ellis. What are the items that people need all the time? “A bottle opener and a screwdriver,” says Coulter. “Those are the things that, besides the knife blade, get used like 90 percent of the time.”
Specialized implements — things like awls or magnifying glasses — come at the price of increasing the size of the tool.
“We were focused on what can you take out of this, what’s the most minimal thing you can do and still make a multi-tool?”
The result is a modern interpretation of a classic; a tool that balances the iconic familiarity of the Swiss Army Knife with the James Brand’s unique perspective on everyday carry.
If anyone's looking at buying this knife; do yourself a favor and buy an Alox Bantam. Roughly 1/3 the cost; but much better and nicer.
I enjoyed your picking, good read
Quote from: cody6268 on February 16, 2019, 12:47:29 AMIf anyone's looking at buying this knife; do yourself a favor and buy an Alox Bantam. Roughly 1/3 the cost; but much better and nicer. I would dearly Love to have an alox bantam, but I thought they were no longer in production?
AAAHHHHH.............yeah ............oh heckydern NO .
Quote from: SirVicaLot on February 16, 2019, 07:27:41 AMI enjoyed your picking, good read
Quote from: Butch on February 16, 2019, 10:44:21 PMAAAHHHHH.............yeah ............oh heckydern NO . Don't worry Butch there'll be a chinese clone out before too long
Gear Patrol is extremely biased towards the James brand. It seems like they have an "advertorial" on them nearly weekly. One of their previous articles compared the Elko to a SAK Classic, and declared the Elko the winner. A better matching comparison would have been an alox Cadet. But then the Elko would have lost the duel.. So the picked a smaller Classic. https://gearpatrol.com/2019/01/24/james-brand-elko-knife-review/
More than a third of the surveyed Gear Patrol staff members reported being cut or otherwise injured by a knife folding while in use.
Why is it that better mouse traps come with much higher prices?
They don't have the economies of scale . If a SAK replacement ever takes hold it will probably be Chinese designed and made.The Chinese could make tens of millions of an item for lower labor costs and Chinese quality and design(still lots of copying) is improving tremendously as seen in the folding knife segment.
Unfortunately for Chinese do far they have relatively little experience yet in making excellent quality products effectively. My dad's workplace for example buys machined products from China, and they can do high quality but the prices of those were as high or higher than European competitors for the same quality, with the usual additional drawbacks of manufacturing across the world.