Growing up in rural North Carolina, there weren’t a lot of Jews. I was one of them.
And when all my cousins and friends from D.C., Atlanta and New York flew in for my bar mitzvah, they thought it peculiar that I received so many pocket knives as a gift.
But to the locals in my town, when a boy becomes a man, he gets a pocket knife. I still have most of them; they’re scattered around my home and I use them frequently to open things and peel fruit. And I always take one hiking or camping.
As of today, I’m considering an upgrade to The Swell, a recent collaboration between industrial design team Discommon and venerable knifemaker The James.
They previously worked together on a futuristic-looking straight razor, but for The Swell they stuck to a classic folding pocket knife design. The twist is that they machined the aluminum casing so that there’s a grip that mimics the ripples in the swell of a wave.
They also added a baby blue thumb latch for easy, one-handed access to the 2.33” titanium blade.
It’ll make a great gift, even if it’s just for me.
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