Why a folding knife

[TLM]

Not intended to be a fight between folders and more solid ones.

I started wondering why some one made a folding knife? Some fast googling and apparently the oldest found is about 2500 years old. So has anyone come across why. The early ones were clearly weaker than any fixed blade tanged knife. I don't think laws said anything about carrying 2000 years ago. The one advantage a folder has is shorter length but if that is not a factor then why? Was it just a cool gadget?

Hmmm ... the things that comes into one's mind on a Sunday morning.

 

[hughtrimble]

Pocketability/stowability surely? Maybe a display of wealth also.

 

[Dave Budd]

i suspect it was largely a case of wealth, fidgety gadgetry.

Most of the earliest (surviving) folding knives are quite ornamental and fiddly in the handles, being intricate castings more like votive offerings or charms. I'm not aware of any grave finds that only have a folding knife (ie there is another everyday knife there too), so the size is less important. It's possible that some later knives were folding to make them more compact, but I suspect that is more to allow multiple tools in one packet such as the classic double ended folding knife that has a large and small blade on the same pivot (maybe a scribe's knife). The often circulated Roman Swiss army knife with the gadgets is very much a luxury item and a display not a proper hard using multi tool

 

[Laurentius]

Safe and convenient carry in a belt purse.

 

[Kadushu]

Maybe for concealment?

 

[Chris]

Halves the length of the knife when not in use and makes it convenient to carry about in a pocket.

 

[Pattree]

The only fixed blade knives that I use in camp (or anywhere else) are culinary.

I do recognise the pleasure of owning a crafted fixed blade knife and I do realise that for many, a fixed blade is useful and fun to use.

Other than my sporks my outdoor knives are all folders as is my saw.
I’m not particularly typical of a BCUK camper in that I have camped wild for a week without using a knife at all, other than for food prep. I whittle using a carving jack.

I don’t carry a knife even in camp. I transport my Opinel #12 (100mm and 120mm blades) folding knives in a small bag which is inside a steel drum that I sit on in camp. My little hatchet and secateurs are in there too. They stay in the tin nearly all the time.

Why a folder. Stowage. No sheath needed. Does the work.

I have two old bone handled sailors knives. These are folders and I suspect for the same reasons.

 

[TLM]

Apparently pockets in their present day form originate around 1200, various kind of purses are the alternative before that. What would be the advantage of having a knife in a purse on your belt instead of a sheath?

 

[Herman30]

Maybe for concealment?

Why, since there were no "open carry laws"?

 

[Kadushu]

Why, since there were no "open carry laws"?

Cloak and dagger stuff, except the dagger would fold.

 

[Springchicken]

Maybe, in the days when belts ruined the cut of one's clothes, it was easier to carry a folding knife, or pen knife, in one's waistcoat pocket for stripping and sharpening one's quill?

To be honest, I haven't the first idea!

 

[C_Claycomb]

‘cause knives that can fold have always been, and will always be, cooler and more interesting than any fixed blade.

 

[C_Claycomb]

I suspect that this is one of those unanswerable questions. Like…”Why do people use custom knives when Moras do everything?”

Three reasons I think this:

• The length of time since the first folders. No one left to ask.
• Ask a dozen folder lovers today, in place free enough to carry whatever they want, why they like or carry folders and you will get a bunch of different and possibly conflicting answers, so why think historical answers will be more consistent and conclusive. Given the span of time, answers are likely to be even more varied.
• Regardless of the answers put forward, some folk are unlikely to agree that those answers constitute sufficiently valid reasons, and will just keep going with “yes but why?”

 

[homesicksteve]

Size for pocket carry. I feel safer pocketing a folder rather than a small fixed blade - accidents in pockets should be over-mitigated for. So no assisted openers...

 

[TLM]

Regardless of the answers put forward, some folk are unlikely to agree that those answers constitute sufficiently valid reasons, and will just keep going with “yes but why?”

Definitely, there are some people that accept nothing. But it still makes me wonder what was the original reason to make a knife that much more complicated, my experience is that things like that usually are not made without some reason. As far as I can think a (primitive) folder has two differing properties: it is shorter and it has integral protection for the edge, can't think of much else. I have a feeling those were just not enough but I guess we'll never really know.

 

[Minotaur]

My guess would be the opposite, as I wonder if they were cheaper?
If you consider flint blades, people would have been used to smaller edges, and metal was expensive for a long time.
Also, I wonder if there is some water-use connection, as the Vikings liked them.

 

[HillBill]

Practicality weighed up with social situations. The knife which isn't seen, isn't deemed as threatening, yet you have a blade when you need it.. Smaller, lighter, practical and out of sight.

 

[TLM]

Practicality weighed up with social situations. The knife which isn't seen, isn't deemed as threatening, yet you have a blade when you need it.. Smaller, lighter, practical and out of sight.

I have to compare this to situation in the Finnish countryside and Lapland in the 60's most men carried puukkos and that was considered normal. Having an axe on your belt might have caused some one wondering that have you lost your puukko.

So how threatening a smallish knife is seen is very time and culture dependent. If a knife is needed often in every day life the less it is seen as a weapon and threatening.

 

[Minotaur]

The earliest peasant knives we have found date to about the founding of the Roman Republic (600 to 550 BC).
That must be before any carry restrictions, which makes me think it has to be for more practical or financial reasons.

 

[Herman30]

That must be before any carry restrictions,

What carry restrictions do you refer to, what century?
I know of some restrictions of citizens to carry swords in cities in medieval times.
That´s why so many carried daggers or alehouse daggers (in britain) for self defence.