Cheap and Cheerful Traditionals.

What is this model called? It is a new one on me. The only Okapis I have seen have the external back spring. Of these, the winner in my book is the Biltong, with its snappy sheepsfoot blade. There is one in my pocket every day.

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Their website calls the newer version a “fisherman knife”, but this particular one is long out of production I think. Okapi moved to South Africa from Germany in the late 1980’s I believe so it was obviously made some time after that. I also have an Okapi shell-handled “barlow” with no blade stamp which is the spear point one you can see in my initial post. I carry that one a lot. My very first Okapi which I purchased in East Africa in the early 90’s also had no country of origin stamped on the blade so I think maybe there was some sort of transition period while they worked out the new tooling.
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I gave my Dad a Biltong and he loves it.
 
The Ettrick is an inexpensive and handy Traditional

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These little guys showed up in the mail today:
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I touched up the blade on the red one and trimmed the little plastic tabs left over from the molding process off the scales with an Opinel (I suppose a razor blade would do...). The blue one will be for a future modification project. Because they are from France, here are the dimensions in millimeters: length closed 80mm, sharpened portion of blade 56mm, overall length open 142mm, thickness a mere 7mm+/-.
I’m not sure what the rules about mentioning retailers is, but I bought them NOS off the guy who named his online business after a dinosaur, and I am pleased with the customer service. I bought 2 because I couldn’t bring myself to pay more in shipping than the cost of the item.
 
These little guys showed up in the mail today:
HdpYEwp.jpg

I touched up the blade on the red one and trimmed the little plastic tabs left over from the molding process off the scales with an Opinel (I suppose a razor blade would do...). The blue one will be for a future modification project. Because they are from France, here are the dimensions in millimeters: length closed 80mm, sharpened portion of blade 56mm, overall length open 142mm, thickness a mere 7mm+/-.
I’m not sure what the rules about mentioning retailers is, but I bought them NOS off the guy who named his online business after a dinosaur, and I am pleased with the customer service. I bought 2 because I couldn’t bring myself to pay more in shipping than the cost of the item.
I've been looking at those.
Baryonyx is a BF dealer-member. Or member-dealer. Anyway, he can be spoken of.
 
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Brand new, still in the blister pack, just $15 (shipped) on the Big Auction Site... Definitely makes me "cheerful" :D
That actually makes me really sad, and let me tell you why:
Back in the mid 70’s when I was in elementary school, I got one of those for my birthday. I think I may have been in 5th grade or so. Also about that time I was given a pair of maroon crushed velvet bell bottom slacks as hand-me-downs. They were still a little too big. I was used to wearing jeans and carried a knife every day without worrying about it falling out of my pocket, so I didn’t think twice about dropping my new knife into the loose pocket of these abominable maroon slacks and heading to the school playground to play basketball. Of course the knife fell out and was lost, as I discovered when I got back home. I retraced my footsteps but never recovered it. As you can tell by my clear recall of these events more than 4 decades later, this incident scarred me for life. I think I had that knife at most 2-3 days.:(
 
That actually makes me really sad, and let me tell you why:
Back in the mid 70’s when I was in elementary school, I got one of those for my birthday. I think I may have been in 5th grade or so. Also about that time I was given a pair of maroon crushed velvet bell bottom slacks as hand-me-downs. They were still a little too big. I was used to wearing jeans and carried a knife every day without worrying about it falling out of my pocket, so I didn’t think twice about dropping my new knife into the loose pocket of these abominable maroon slacks and heading to the school playground to play basketball. Of course the knife fell out and was lost, as I discovered when I got back home. I retraced my footsteps but never recovered it. As you can tell by my clear recall of these events more than 4 decades later, this incident scarred me for life. I think I had that knife at most 2-3 days.:(
I'm very sorry that happened to you. There's a good lesson to learn here though... You wear maroon crushed velvet bell bottoms and bad things are going to happen. :D
But seriously, losing a knife sucks, especially for a kid. :(
 
I'm very sorry that happened to you. There's a good lesson to learn here though... You wear maroon crushed velvet bell bottoms and bad things are going to happen. :D
But seriously, losing a knife sucks, especially for a kid. :(
I suppose it was a lesson learned. To this day I am reluctant to carry any knife I can’t easily replace if I wear slacks, and even then I am constantly checking my pocket to make sure it is still there. Good thing I can wear jeans at work.
 
Thanks, Matt. I visited the brewery a couple of months ago, and saw the knife in the gift shop. Had to get it! It's a Victorinox Spartan. The other side has the standard red covers.
Good excuse to visit the brewery, I looked online but they're sold out
 
Rough Rider, MAM, Opinel, Mora, and Buck 37x/38x offshore production are all good inexpensive knives.
Though some of the Rough Riders are not precisely "inexpensive" these days at $30 to $40 plus a pop ... (they can keep 'em, too, as far as my budget is concerned.)
 
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New member here. Sorry if I’m butting in, but I was hoping to create a new place for people to discuss and show off their favorite inexpensive traditionals. This is intended for new or old knives which were made to be inexpensive when new, not bargain finds of expensive models. The knives should not be cheap junk, rather knives which are a good value for the low price, useful, and have some (perhaps unexplainable) endearing quality. I will start with this picture of some of my own (and yes, I like lanyards):
https://imgur.com/3hpB6au
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I don't think I've ever seen an Imperial with those Old Hickory-looking "hammer" dings.
 
I've always been disproportionately fond of these Imperial fixed blades, and this is the nicest one I've seen. The Barlow is stamped, "BAYES/USA". The guy I bought it from had buckets of them, and he said he'd gotten them from a guy who got them from Colonial. Fake bolsters.
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Brand new, still in the blister pack, just $15 (shipped) on the Big Auction Site... Definitely makes me "cheerful" :D

Now if you just don't mess it up by reprofileing the blade.:D Those are great knives.:thumbsup::)
 
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