Tassie Daz said:
Hey NeilM crevicing tools a great idea.
And BetPlacer have a look at the handle. There are raised swirls on the brass.
Anyway I wonder how old it is......Any clues.
I saw the handle, but I'm wondering if there is any writing on the blade anywhere. As far as it's age, they have been only mass producing these in the Philippines since the 1970's.
From the looks it seems the handle is brass. It doesn't look like the blade is too rusty so my guess is 80's or 90's at the earliest. I owned my first Balisong (Butterfly Knife) when I was 12 in the early 80's. At that time you could get em' at any novelty store.
They are not a very practical fighting knife. It takes a spin and a flip to open them, and by the time you deploy the weapon, you've likely been poked a few times. Moreover, just as a utility knife, the locking mechanism on the bottom NEVER stays closed, so you're always fighting two moving parts during utility use. About the only thing they have going for them is an intimidation factor of how it looks when you go to flip it open... It makes you look like you know how to handle a blade. Outside of that, they are pretty useless. For this, I would consider them to be 100% a defensive weapon.
As an urban picker, I find and resell these all the time. They are usually never made of any precious metals or anything. Typically I'll put em' in a pile of 10 or so other pocket knifes I've collected. Those piles never yield more than about $50 USD.
