What does "sterile" mean?

No markings such as steel type, company name, company logo, serial number, date of manufacture, or place of manufacture. In other words, plain. Guys that go on Spec Ops sometimes might need tools that cannot be traced.
 
means it has no markings on it of any kind. Make, model number, nothing. My opinion, it implies some kind of "covert-ops" cache that may appeal to a certain demographic. In the past, the idea was that a sterile knife could be given to a covert operator to be used in a place where he wasn't suposed to be, so that if the knife was lost on the mission, there was plausible deniability because the knife could not be traced to a country of origin/issue. These days, when country of origin has nothing to do with the user (anyone in the world can buy anything made anywhere), and images of every product can be googled instantly, the idea of a "sterile" anything seems gimmicky. I mean, it's not like anyone couldn't figure out what kind of knife it is even without markings, and anyone in the world could own one, so it's no proof of anything.
 
It means the blade is incapable of fertilizing other blades and thus producing offspring.

Shao
 
A knife with markings by itself will not likely yield any vital info if it falls into enemy hands but it could be small yet significant piece of an information puzzle the enemy is trying to assemble. They may have other significant info collected that may tie into knife's origin.

That is why in the military servicemembers are trained and briefed about not giving out mission information no matter how minor. Even a tiny bit of info may seem insignificant on its own but once again, it may be last piece of the puzzle.

For the non-military knife user a sterile knife probably appeals simply because it has a cool vibe/look.
 
I like them simply because I don't like junk printed on the blade. The only covert ops I engage in with knives is getting new ones into the house unnoticed.
 
MikeH said:
I like them simply because I don't like junk printed on the blade. The only covert ops I engage in with knives is getting new ones into the house unnoticed.
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I agree with you there. But let's not forget why people started putting those markings on knives in the first place.

Shao
 
MikeH said:
I like them simply because I don't like junk printed on the blade. The only covert ops I engage in with knives is getting new ones into the house unnoticed.
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Ohmygod.....we must be married to the same woman! LOL
 
Supposedly so that the origin could not be traced - but it probably applies more to firearms or equipment manufactured with serial numbers where records are kept of ownership. e.g. firearms. A pakistan-manufactured AK47 assault rifle with no serial numbers would certainly be sterile.

Knives themselves are pretty much sterile, even with makers markings. Unless they are so unique - like a pearl handled emerson CQC6 - that ownership can be traced, any Tom, Dick, and Harry anywhere in the world could have bought them from the Internet.
 
Having an unmarked knife is only useful in the event of being captured by the enemy whilst going about a secret undertaking. As in "no idea" where it's made in. By all means, don't ever buy a sterile knife if you ever hope to get anything for it in future. No markings means that it's not going to be easy for anyone to identify and placing a value on it. Come to think of it there are probably far more sterile OEM knives coming from the orient than you can possibly imagine.
 
With todays sophisticated analysis, I imagine that if any government was so inclined they could tell who made it, when and where even if it was "sterile".

I think maybe 60 years ago it might have been important, but not any more.

However I'm sure that "sterile" sells a lot of knives. Heck maybe companies should put wrong indetificatiosn marks on them just to be more covert.
 
Sterile was made for the purpose that if caught, you can't prove that they are from a certain country of origin.
 
DaveH said:
With todays sophisticated analysis, I imagine that if any government was so inclined they could tell who made it, when and where even if it was "sterile".
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Absolutely agree. Anymore when someone mentions sterile pieces, you should reflexively think "mall ninja."
 
I like sterile pieces sometimes just because they look cleaner.

These days there's a tendency to etch whatever you want wily nilly all over the blade just because you have a laser etcher and you can. Back when it meant getting out a hand graver and s

pending some serious quality time getting to know your magnifying glass, people didn't waste their time engraving useless crap on the blades.

I mean, on some knives these days the do the logo (large) plus the knife name (in large print all the way across the bevel) plus the model number plus some silly extra logo...

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I mean, come on guys. Did we need to know that it's stainless steel? Is just 'stainless steel' so informative that it needs to be emblazoned in giant capital letters all across the blade?

I mean, logos used to be just a little stamp on the choil. Sometimes a knife just looks better without them.

In fact, I would make the argument that the more logos a knife has, the more 'Mall-Ninja'esque it is. Compare that to a real knife, that is darn near close to sterile.

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It just has an inconspicuous stamp on it. If it didn't have the stamp, it would be 'sterile' but it's close enough for me. Now if I had a choice between one with "CHRIS REEVE KNIVES A-2 TOOL STEEL MEASURE ONCE CUT TWICE" on it and one that was sterile, I'd pick the sterile model. Thank God he has better taste.
 
:)

I guess its only going to be a only short while before some company prints the entire life history of the designer in 6pt font on the blade so we could read it while taking a dump. The knife industry's contribution to encourage literacy.
 
redvenom said:
:)

I guess its only going to be a only short while before some company prints the entire life history of the designer in 6pt font on the blade so we could read it while taking a dump. The knife industry's contribution to encourage literacy.
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Already done by MOD wasn't it?
 
A pakistan-manufactured AK47 assault rifle with no serial numbers would certainly be sterile.
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Actually on the Pakistani made copies of non-Pakistani Firearms, they usually attempt to mimic the markings of the original manufacturer, though they are usually done incorrectly. For example on a Pakistani Makarov that I saw images of online, the attempted to Copy Russian Markings. The maker included a non-cyrillic character in the serial number, and erred on the arsenal stamp slightly. Also there were other obvious differences in slide serrations, and finish. At one point, the Yugoslavians made such ammo for export orders that they did not want to be connected to. They would usually include a date code, but no manufacturers code. It is usually identifiable as Yugoslavian upon visual inspection.

In the past, I have read that Spec Ops teams would carry weapons that were available internationally to cover their tracks. In Vietnam this would mean Uzis, captured NVA weapons, Swedish K Subguns, Browning HP's, etc....Of course GI arms were also carried too.
 
A modern advantage of knife sterility is the absence of, for example, "covert sentry neutralization device" on the blade when stopped by anti-ninja security in the mall (or "shopping centre" as we say in Wales :))
 
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