What is the fascination with peanuts and/or pocketknives smaller than a 3" handle?
I really feel they're so small I can't get a good drip on them and even unsafe when opening/closing. It almost seems like too small of blades to even cut things with (even something simple like an apple).
Enlighten me.
In the end, it's about overkill, or lack of. In this day and age, pocket space is sometimes at a premium. Cell phone, car keys/key ring, little bottle of hand sanitizer, arthritis pain meds, pen/pencil, bandana, small flashlight, RONCO pocket defibrillator in case of vapor lock, whatever. The compact little peanut drops in to the bottom of a pocket and goes un-noticed until needed. One of the truest things my old man ever told me was, a pocket knife is something that is carried a lot, but used only once in a while. In todays mostly urban environment, there's not really a lot of need for much knife. In fact, millions of people go without any knife everyday. Others, choose a knife like the little Victorinox classic. The classic makes the peanut look like a large knife by comparison, yet if we look at the production numbers the Vic classic is the most produced pocket knife in the world. Over 9 million of them are sold every year, and that's many times the total number of the second and third largest knife companies in the world combined.
So, why the peanut?
For me, the peanut is personal. I just happen to grow up with a man who used a Case peanut for his everyday pocket knife. But in general, the peanut size of knife was the pocket knife of the era that I grew up in. Those days, every man who had pants on had a pocket knife in a pocket somewhere. And it was almost always a small, 3 inch or less two blade jack or pen. Sometimes it was one of those cracked ice celluloid low cost jobs found at the cardboard display near the cash register at the five and dime, or it may have been a real Case, Boker, Schrade, or Camillus. But they were all a small two blade. The basic reason was, people needed a pocketknife, but they didn't need much more than a few inches of blade, if that. They carried as much knife as was needed to open mail, cut string, open a box, gut a fish, whittle a hot dog stick for your kid. Small jacks and pen knives were enough to get the job done, and un-noticed when not needed. The buck 110 had been invented yet. The age of over size had not happened yet.
There were other slightly larger knives if you needed more knife or handle to hang onto. Barlow, stockman, and toothpicks were longer, and had handles that could be grabbed with work gloves on. But for the most part in urban areas, the small 3 inch and under knife was ubiquitous. Today, life is still pretty much the same. Life has a habit of filling our pockets with stuff. A small unobtrusive little cutting tool that goes un-noticed yet packs enough cutting ability to do most of the jobs it will be used for can be a good thing. I myself love the concept of small and effective. An outlook of
maximum minimalism is a hold over from my ultra light backpacking days and travel by motorcycle where you couldn't carry anything that didn't fit in your pockets or saddlebags. I always went for the smallest tool that would function at it's intended task. Monoculars instead of binoculars, mini .22 revolvers, peanut size knives. It's more about what you really don't need, and being liberated by downsizing.
Maybe it's like appreciation of a good scotch, an acquired taste. Peanuts are not for everyone. But you'll never know if you don't try one.
Any of these small blades has proven to be enough for my mostly urban life in Georgetown Texas. The Remington peanut by Camillus feels great in the hand.
If I go off in the woods, or fishing, my sheath knife goes on my hip. It
augments my legume for heavy duty stuff.
