Switchblade: The Ace of Blades

ContentsEditor’s ForewordvIntroduction 1Chapter 1 History 7Chapter 2 What Is a Switchblade? 17Chapter 3 Federal Law 25Chapter 4 State and Local Laws 31Chapter 5 How Switchblades Work 39Chapter 6 Collector’s Knives 57Chapter 7 Butterfly Knives 71Chapter 8 Switchblade Kits 77Chapter 9 Care and Maintenance 81Chapter 10 How to Use Switchblades 85Chapter 11 Switchblades Today 91Conclusion 97iii

Chapter 1History“This beautiful museum-grade coach gun is yours for amere $675 cash,” the crafty broker explained. He was right;it was a one-of-a-kind in gorgeous condition.The year was 1962. We still had silver in our coins then.Our dollars were big, round, and hard. Six hundred andseventy five of them was a princely sum.As the man said, it was a museum-grade gun—made, asI recall, by R. Wilson of London in the Year of Our Lord1778 (according to the markings). Its “bell” muzzle allowedone to load it while bouncing along in an old overlandcoach. The weapon looked like the type supposedly carriedby the pilgrims.“If the gun doesn’t work, there is always the bayonet,”he continued, throwing a long side lever allowing a greatbayonet-like spike to rotate to attention from the side ofthe weapon.“All this is, is a great, giant switchblade knife disguisedas a flintlock muzzleloader,” I thought. The blade wasalmost as long as the diminutive carbine. As a weapon, itsgreatest disability was the fact that it took 14 inches of sidespace to allow the blade to rotate into position. It amazedand intrigued me that a spring almost 200 years old stillworked with such enthusiasm and precision. I almostbought the weapon for that reason alone.7

8 Switchblade: The Ace of BladesEasily hidden spring-operated knives of one sort oranother have been around for hundreds of years. TheRomans were reportedly the first makers of folding knives.These were simple affairs, built without springs.The concept of combining a gun and a switchblade knifedid not die easily. Most weapons museums around theworld contain examples of flint and cap lock pistols as wellas carbines designed to be used with a spring-loaded knife.As late as 1850, at least one American company offered a.22 rimfire single-shot pistol with spring-operated knife. Itwas nothing more than a curio. New, it cost a dollar or two.Few could be honestly described as offensive weapons; nevertheless,they apparently were rendered illegal by theNational Firearms Act of 1934. (Bureaucrats have interpretedthe law differently from time to time.)Yet, because such devices were basically firearms andbecause selling them even as collector’s items was not particularlylucrative, most dealers became cautious abouthandling them. Classifications from the Bureau of Alcohol,Tobacco, and Firearms have only recently relaxed and clarifiedthe status of these devices, long after they fell fromfavor even as collector’s items.Mass-produced machine-made switchblade knives werefirst made by the Schrade Company around the turn of thecentury. The design, with various modifications, was intheir line for many years thereafter. The company changedhands and names, but switchblade knives remained intheir catalog until external circumstances intervened.Apparently there was a consistent demand, but not necessarilyone that was very large at any given time. Schradetried various marketing approaches, including touting theknives as valuable and necessary additions to women’ssewing kits, or alternatives for those concerned about breakingtheir fingernails opening a conventional knife. Otheradvertisements were directed at farmers and outdoorsmen.

History 9Knife pistol, dated around 1855.While Schrade was the first and foremost maker, otherexamples of manufacture abound. Case, KA-BAR, andCamillus all made Sprengers (the German term for switchblade)at one time or another. Some of these knives arevaluable as collector’s items today.All of these companies produced switchblade knives oncontract, showing any brand name the purchaser desired.Even Sears carried them when it was a rural-oriented, mailorder supply company. Now switchblade knives have gonethe way of guns, ammunition, and traps. Yuppies would, ofcourse, have no interest in these items.Shrapleigh Hardware Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, usingthe trademark Diamond Edge, sold literally tens of thousandsof switchblade knives around the country. Many wereso small and trinkety they only lasted a month or two inactual service. Diamond Edge sales were usually madewholesale to qualified dealers and distributors. Examplesof these knives show up with amazing frequency in cigarboxes full of ancient, insignificant treasures; old toolboxes;top dresser drawers; and other similar places.Diamond Edge knives were obviously mass-produced.They were not built to last even when carried in one’s pocketfor the occasional cutting of a plug of tobacco. Relative tothe number produced, few examples remain, having livedup to their original expectation.

10 Switchblade: The Ace of Blades1850 Automatic Knife, with handle of stag horn and brass.A total of at least 140 U.S. patents have been issued fordifferent types of switchblade knives since 1836. But theUnited States is not the only country that produced switchbladeknives.As many of the 40,000 people who visit Tijuana, Mexico,each day can attest, switchblade knives are readily availablein at least this one foreign country. The knives are generallysloppy, with ill-fitting, cheap components, plastic handles,and soft locking pins. However, buyers may be surprised tolearn that the true origin of many of these knives is theRizzuto Estileto Company of Milano, Italy. Some knives aremade in Mexico but, like the many T-shirts, plastic statues,and other trinkets, close examination will generally revealthat many are imported from some other place.Germany, Sweden, and Thailand also produce switchbladesin commercial quantities. Quality German switchbladesare currently the standard of comparison. GermanSprengers customarily have polished wood, horn, or bone

History 11handles. The parts are sturdy, well-fitted, polished, andgenerally well made. Virtually every German knife storehas at least one or two Sprengers on display.One very rarely sees switchblade knives in the UnitedKingdom. Perhaps because they are illegal or because theEnglish feel the same way about switchblades as they doabout automatic and pump shotguns, they are few andfar between.European knives, as well as some of the very cheapMexican varieties, sometimes have handguards designedto fold unobtrusively against the handle when closed.Others have diminutive blade guards built into the knifehandle. Some blade-release mechanisms are built into theblade guards.Interest in switchblades in Europe is about as it was inAmerica decades ago. Some people like and buy them, butthe demand cannot be characterized as being especiallystrong. Popular American interest in switchblades came toa screeching halt on August 12, 1958, when new federallaws went into effect. Congress, in all its wisdom, prohibitedthe “manufacture or distribution of any knife having ablade that opens automatically by pushing a button.”Interest in switchblade knives has revived recently. Butfor 20 years, this style of weapon slipped into obscurity simplybecause it did not have a constituency! A constituencyin this case would have been a reasonably alert, reasonablyarticulate band of informed owners who would have beenwilling and able to call or write their congressmen aboutthe law. Knife manufacturers saw switchblades as a minoritem contributing only marginally to their bottom line.Most did not even bother to testify at the hearings pertainingto the bill. Competitors of Schrade, the largest switchblademanufacturer, are reported to have lobbied for the billin hopes that making switchblades illegal would weakenSchrade’s position in the market.

12 Switchblade: The Ace of BladesRenewed interest has occurred for several reasons. Asmall but significant number of potential users have rediscoveredthat switchblades are practical and fascinating,and very good as outdoorsmen or survivalist knives. Thisinterest has been heightened by the general realizationthat federal laws pertaining to switchblades are probablynot constitutional. Now it is the switchblade laws that don’thave a constituency.It appears that only one case involving the FederalSwitchblade Act of 1958 has ever gone to court. The meritsof that case have little to do with private ownership and arenot significant. Thinly spread law enforcement people havenot elected to take relatively minor switchblade casesbefore a judge.Even the passage of the law is clouded with questionswhen viewed from the perspective of 30 years. SomeAmericans remember or have heard of Estes Kefauver, thecoonskin-capped senator from Tennessee. Good ol’ Estes wasthe original sponsor of a 1957 bill prohibiting switchblades.Popular interest in “doing something about switchblades”probably goes back to a 1950 article in Women’sHome Companion magazine. In our current age we tend tolook with disinterested humor at such journals, but at thetime the magazine swung a pretty big stick. The magazinearticulated and influenced public opinion against thelarge, often militant youth gangs that operated in ourlarger cities. The article stated that switchblades werebeing used with great frequency by our children to killeach other in the streets. These cruel instruments, theauthor noted, should be made illegal, thus saving manychildren’s lives.Logically, one could have argued that, without switchblades,gang members would turn to butcher knives, huntingknives, or even sharpened pieces of steel. As it was, theyactually turned to shotguns, rifles, pistols, and MAC-l0s.

History 13Inanimate objects have little influence on humanbehavior. Social behavior has continued to deterioratedespite laws regulating firearms, switchblades, or bolognasausage. Alert politicians such as Senator Kefauver, alwayslooking for a cause and a constituency, jumped feetfirst intothe fray. Kefauver’s popularity, however, was waning. Thefull Senate summarily rejected his first bill.The next session, a representative from Illinois, presumablywhere street gangs were numerous, took up thebanner. His bill passed the House June 26, 1958, and wassent to the Senate, where it was approved July 31.Reasoning that knife buyers, if prohibited from buyingswitchblades, would simply purchase other knives, theSchrade Company, our nation’s principal knifemaker at thetime, offered only token resistance to the measure. Sincethe switchblade act was an interstate commerce bill fallinginto the jurisdiction of the Interstate CommerceCommission, it is interesting to note that this agency choseto sit this one out, making no recommendation. They werenot alone. The Justice Department, which would be responsiblefor enforcing the measure, filed a letter with theHouse Committee, saying, “We are unable to recommendenactment of this legislation.”The military history of switchblades, while interesting,is actually rather unremarkable. Both American andGerman forces used automatic knives in the Second WorldWar. The most common designs were technically gravityknives and not true switchblades. Both countries madetheir knives principally for issue to paratroopers.The German knife was well made, having a grip ofheavy polished wood with a stainless steel blade. TheSolingen Knife Works, in the German city of that name,manufactured the knives, which are highly sought after bycollectors. The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS),a forerunner of the CIA, used a gravity knife almost identi-

14 Switchblade: The Ace of BladesThe U.S. military issued these switchblades to paratroopers and flight crews. Thehooked blade was designed for cutting parachute shroud lines without puncturingflotation equipment.cal to the German model. This knife was manufactured inSheffield, England, by George Ibberson. This was a limitedand obscure model that is seldom encountered today.From late 1940 to quite recently, American paratrooperswere issued genuine side-opening, spring-activated switchbladeknives. Various makes and models were produced bywhichever American company submitted the lowest bid.Some had a second blade hook along with the conventionalspring-loaded blade. All were relatively small, weighingabout four ounces. Length was about seven inches.During the late 1980s and 1990s, switchblades made asignificant comeback in the U.S. market. Although the 1958law remained in effect, around 1985 a few daring customknifemakers began turning out high-quality handmade

History 15automatics. Then, during the late 1980s, Florida knifemakersRon Miller and Charlie Ochs designed and produced acoil-spring-fired, button-lock switchblade that becameknown as the “SEAL knife” or “black knife.”At the same time, a number of enterprising companiesrealized that they could sidestep the 1958 law’s ban onimportation of switchblades by bringing the knives into thecountry unassembled. Selling these knives as kits alsoeffectively circumvented the laws prohibiting interstatesales, and switchblades were once again widely available tothe U.S. public.With the switchblade renaissance well under way, thestage was once again set for commercial production of automaticknives. Knifemaking giant Benchmade was amongthe first mainstream cutlery companies to introduceswitchblades to their line. They were soon joined by specialtymanufacturers like Microtech, Paragon, and Pro-Tech, who continued to raise the bar and bring switchbladematerials, design, and construction into the 21st century.