Not ready to be made into a coonskin cap. Image via Old Chum.

1. Carry it around every day. A lot of people who are invested in what little space there is in their pockets make room for a pocket knife. Pocket Dumps, Everyday Carry.

2. Be wholesome. Mumbelty peg is a game of knife feats. It’s competitive and skill-driven, and the loser is punished heartily by having to pull a peg out of the ground with his teeth. The American Boy’s Book of Sport has diagrams of the knife-flipping tricks one must accomplish in order to be crowned winner.

There are other variations of mumbelty peg, including an ill-advised one that requires a pair of duelers with more stupidity than skill. The one who throws a knife closest to his own foot wins. Stick your own foot and you win automatically.

3. Skin a raccoon. If you come across a furry friend that’s given up the ghost, this guide teaches you how to turn that fresh road kill into a pair of fur socks (or cap, or pouch), using only nature’s tools. Which means the animal’s own brains.

4. Whittle. Art of Manliness’ guide to whittling takes you from knowing nothing to knowing something about how to fill up your time with little more than a tree branch and a pocket knife.

5. One thing you can’t do with a pocket knife is use it as a weapon. If you think through defending yourself while getting ambushed in a back alley, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that you will have to get very, very close to an attacker before you can scratch the surface of the person’s skin with a pocket knife. If you’re thinking of attacking someone, you better hope that person is already in a coma, because you’re likely to get a knee to the balls before you can set your pocket knife in action. Here’s a run-down by an expert on why knife fighting is a crazy myth that, if executed, will end in tears and/or prison: “Knife Fighting Lies,” No Nonsense Self Defense.

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The Free-Trade Bugaboo, 1880s, by Charles Jay Taylor, Courtesy of Georgia State University Library

Not that any tariff rates make any sense: the tariff on a patriotic commodity like steel rides at around 1 or 2%, while foreign-seeming soybean oil gets 18 to 45%. Premium cuts of meat are barely guarded at 4% but cheap meat gets a 10 to 20% tariff slapped on. Don’t mess with our crappy meat or our crappy scissors!

But all those are just numbers, where does the flag waving over scissors come in? Check out this 1909 letter to congress where twelve US shear manufacturers argued “That with an increase in duty, as will be proposed, a new industry will be created in this country.” Ah, to live in a place with a thriving scissor and shear manufactury. That’s a flag I could salute proudly! The letter goes on to explain why exactly US scissor makers need protection. (This is where you say something about how the more things change the more they stay the same because the complaint was about cheap foreign labor, not Chinese this time but German.)

H. Cromwell Criterion, Courtesy of Great Planes Trading

“While the actual wage of a German mechanic is apparently two-thirds of that paid in this country, the difference is really greater. In Germany the work is done entirely by contract and not in a factory. The workman takes to his home the rough material and with the aid of the family the product is finished.”

It’s not cheap labor because the Germans were living in padlocked dorms and sleeping in shifts to get the opportunity to engage in sweatshop labor. The men were bringing work home! To the modern ear, this set-up doesn’t sound diabolical. It sounds idyllic. You can’t watch an hour of television these days without seeing advertisement after advertisement about work-at-home schemes and how marvelous they would make your life.

Our Flags - Beat Germany - Support Every Flag that Opposes Prussianism, ca. 1917-1918, Courtesy of Ohio History Central

Not to mention that the German man who brought work home was teaching his children (at least his sons) a trade. The letter correctly points out that this age-old method of manufacturing harnesses the economic efficiency of the family to the cart. But it’s not presented as the beautiful continuity of a tradition of familial apprenticeship that could be traced back for centuries… it’s a sneaky cheat. “Healthy, honest Americans are leaving their homes to a factory and making scissors. These Germans are taking scissor blanks home and putting their children to work like godless communists!”

In case you’re thinking that this was part of the anti-German sentiment being drummed up by francophiles in the lead-up to WWI, it wasn’t. It’s just good old fashioned American xenophobia.. The year 1909 was a bit too early for the anti-German stuff and besides, in the very next letter the French were scapegoated. Following the shear maker’s complaint is a similar plea for protection from Tool Steel makers.

“There are any number of manufacturing concerns in this country who will bear witness to the fact that certain wily Frenchmen have invaded the country a few years ago and sold any amount of a supposedly miraculous tool steel [that] was almost worthless….This case is an extreme illustration of the credulity of some American tool steel buyers and their curious confidence in anything manufactured on the other side of the ocean.”

The idea of protectionism is that a tariff (or a subsidy, which amounts to the same thing, really) is to give a delicate new industry the space to take root and and become strong. Once strong, the tariff could be dropped, or so the fairy tale goes. Rarely does it work this way. Usually, consumers end up paying more than they need to and companies respond to the free kick in the shin to their foreign competition with complacency, ultimately becoming even less competitive than they were before.

Often the call for protection takes on a patriotic tone, critical of the people who are threatening our native industry. In the case of our cousins across the pond, whether the complaint has centered on communistic German family-men, wily Frenchmen or government subsidies for home industries, decades of similar pitches from protectionists on the American side have not eroded our “curious confidence” in European goods. That confidence remains quite strong in this country, mostly for good reason.

The idea of buying a pair of shears that was finished in a man’s home with his children playing and learning at his feet gives me a warm feeling I can’t quite give up even though that possibility is long gone.

Adrian Colesberry is also the author of “How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry,” published by Gotham Books.

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Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Connecticut

A gentlemen’s knife wasn’t for the right tool for a farmer or someone working in the outdoors. It wasn’t much help to skin a buffalo or even a jack rabbit. But for the urban dweller they were a perfect little multifunctional utensil. In a time when most household items were still mechanical, a small knife was often all you needed to get them working again.

The handle is made of mother of pearl, the inner layer of shell. This rather precious material suggests that this knife was a Sunday, rather than an any day – choice.

LF&C, N.B. Conn., U.S.A

This knife is made by Landers, Frary & Clark, New Britain, Connecticut, a company founded in 1853. In its beginnings, Landers, Frary & Clark produced cutlery, scissors and other hardware. In 1908, the company started producing kitchen appliances and over the next 50 years became one of this industry’s mayor players. Facing bankruptcy in 1965, Landers, Frary & Clark was purchased by General Electric. The company name was discontinued.

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The Estwing family probably makes the best hammers you can buy. Founded in 1923 by Ernest O. Estwing (a Swedish immigrant), they still manufacture their hammers in Rockford, Illinois. I love that it says on their website that they want to make “attractive striking” tools. What a great company goal. I was happy when I found this Rip Hammer a few month ago at the Long Beach Antique Market.

With this hammer, head and handle are forged out of one piece. This makes it extremely robust, ensuring that you don’t have to fear the head flying off. The grip is made of thin leather discs, which not only makes the hammer particularly ‘attractive’, it’s also a great way to absorb shock. Estwing’s design prevents the discs from coming loose by pushing them into a triple-circle shaped pattern in the steel.

I’m still trying to find out what year my hammer was made, but thankfully they still make them today.

I’ve never seen a hammer with such a narrow neck.

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