The
Lion Steel Gitano has been on T
he List for a while now, partly because I'm a sucker for knives based on historical designs. The Gitano is based on the old Spanish Navaja knives and this one designed by Gudy van Poppel was the custom knifemaker's first collaboration with Lion Steel
. It has a 3.35" Niolox stainless steel blade, titanium bolster and liners, and green canvas Micarta scales. The Niolox is a tool steel that's not as tough as Sleipner or D2, but has even better edge retention and much protection from corrosion.
The Najava knives are practically the national knife of Spain and the backsprings were used with them since the 1700s as a locking mechanism. They were, as many of the best knives of olden times, a combination of EDC and fighting knife. Everyone carried them, but some were quicker to use them. It gets a bit of a bad rap for its association with criminals, but it would be like if American criminals exclusively used Buck 110s during knife crimes during the 1970s. Sure some people using them might be eyed suspiciously, but it would be used by a ton of other people in their every day lives too. I'd love to see Ken Onion do a version of the Andalusian
navaja bandolera blade, with a slight recurve, which I think would be right up his alley. Gudy van Poppel's knife takes its name from the Spanish Gypsies of Andalusia. The Gitanos were famous knife fighters, teaching their fighting techniques to their sons the same way fathers recently taught their kids to flyfish. The knives designed for fighting were a lot bigger than the Lion Steel version. The Cold Steel Espada XL is a closer representation to the fighting knives in at least scale, although most of the fighting knives were bigger, but not the locking mechanism (
can you imagine the Espada XL with a very strong backspring instead of a backlock?).
It's got a stronger backspring than most slipjoints, so it feels like the knife is
locked when it's at both the open and half-opened positions. Some might argue that for a slipjoint it's a bit too strong and you do have to be mindful of how
fighty it is, especially when you're closing it. Some could argue that this knife could make use of the traditional pull ring, used to disengage the backspring, that a lot of these knives had in the mid-1800s. None of my other slipjoints are this hard to close, but then none of my other slipjoints give me this much
semi-locking safety when used either. It's a well made, clean design, captures the historic style well, feels good in the hand, and gives you a formal occasion knife that can hold its edge for a long time.
