What Happened to Souvenir Knives?

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circuitspore

circuitspore

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As a kid/teenager in the 80's and early 90's, my grandparents used to bring me back souvenir pocketknives from all over the US. Nothing too elaborate or expensive, just little pocket folders with the town name or a related scene on the scales. I still have them in my collection.

I've recently taken a new position where I'll be travelling to tradeshows about once a month. I've already been to Atlanta and Philly, and not a single pocketknife to be found in the bajillion gift shops I hit up.

What gives? Did 9/11 end the souvenir knife?
 
They went the way of the advertising knife I am afraid. I remember when seed stores gave away knives by the handful when I was a kid. Everyone I knew had one of the red and white checkered Purina knives back then. Pocket knives have fallen out of vogue it would seem, I know when I was growing up every male over the age of 8 or so carried a pocket knife daily. Now I would be surprised if it was 1 out of 5 males who do so.

kutmaster-purina-stockman.jpg
 
i guess the crap 10$ souvenir knife from china has been replaced
by the 12$ almost as good as the american/eurpean made 100$ knife :)

Would you want silly logos on your daily carry? :)
 
I think it was just a change in culture.
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Pocket knives have fallen out of vogue it would seem, I know when I was growing up every male over the age of 8 or so carried a pocket knife daily. Now I would be surprised if it was 1 out of 5 males who do so.
Click to expand...

Now that I think about it, you guys are right. Being a guy that feels naked without a pocket knife, I hadn't considered the current cultural view of pocketknives.

Would you want silly logos on your daily carry? :)
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I have no intention of carrying a souvenir knife. I'll buy it, put it with my collection, and pull it out every so ofter. It's like a shot glass, t-shirt, what-have-you. Something to remember a certain time and place by.

Oh well. Maybe I'll try to find old ones on flea bay since it seems to be a lost cause in the 21st century. The closest thing I've found that are currently being produced are cheap chinese knives with professional sports teams on them. These might an option if I wasn't a 'sports agnostic'.
 
Heck, if did buy one in Atlanta, the TSA guy at the airport would just take it away from you before you got on the plane to come home!!

rc
 
These days you'd have to be pretty silly not to put everything remotely of interest to TSA in your check baggage.
 
They are like gimme advertising book matches. Evil things that really never existed. (Kind of like smoking)
 
I was on the butt end of the years when us students could have pocket knives at school. I worked on a farm and needed that knife right after school.

I can only think this caused most to stop carrying them altogether.
 
I've gotten in the habit of swinging by the local government surplus store once a week or so to check out the TSA confiscations. It's a good cross section of what folks are actually carrying, although of course the higher quality stuff goes a lot faster than the crap.

I see a lot of advertising knives there still. Last week it was a "Petro Canada" Zippo knife and a Buck 526 (1.5" blade, 2.75" folded) with a State of Idaho seal on it. A month or two ago it was a "Louis Belet SA" (apparently they make the machine tools that Swiss watches are made on) Wenger SAK- new version with the ergonomic scales. Not bad for a dollar apiece. I also see a lot of SAK Classics, some bigger SAKs, and a lot of Chinese junk knives with advertising on them. They usually have some wood scaled Chinese imitation SAKs with the name of some locality on them too. A while ago they could hardly give away Alaska souvenir ulus (you know, the Eskimo style cooking knives).

Bottom line, I think you have to be a good customer to get a quality advertising knife these days. Chinese junk is easier to find but who wants to use that? But, I do think the local souvenir knives are still out there. They just aren't good enough to actually use.
 
Souveneir knives and such mostly enticed children. Now that it's illegal for children to carry pocketknives, it's not politically acceptable or economically viable to market them to them. As a result, these fancy little knives have gone the way of the dodo. Also, pocketknives in general have given way to multitools such as Leathermans and Gerbers.
 
Meanwhile, Back In Sweden . . .

Frosts/Mora of Sweden still do advertising knives. Of course they're sheath knives, but still . . .

. . . except that they seem to have removed that content from their site. Darn. Well, it was still offered as of last year.

Well, let's see if the other Swedish knife company still does logo knives . . .

. . . Ah, yes. EKA of Sweden still does promotional knives.

If you go to their site, then click on the "Promotional Gifts" label on the left side.

So you could, if you were in the mood, order up a few hundred knives with "The High Road" and a cool graphic.

Well, okay, maybe not you, but the THR owner could.

I wonder if there would be a market for something like that.

:D

 
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