My daughter and her boyfriend met up with us during our recent belated honeymoon to London and Paris. Boyfriend is about as close to a real-life Tarzan (or, more accurately, Ishi) as I’ve ever encountered. As such, he doesn’t care much about guns, but he’s a knife aficionado of the highest water — so much so that when we were trying to figure out what monuments to go sightsee, he was looking for knife shops. (Opinels are a lot cheaper over there than here, BTW.)
Anyway, on one of our last days in Paris, he dragged me to a particular shop with a bit of a history. I’ll post more about that place a bit later, but for now I’ll show you what I bought there. Yes, it’s a French knife. So sue me; I like it!
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Voila! I call him Perceval. (Okay, that’s really unoriginal of me.) It was at a fair price (considering the atrocious exchange rate at the time) for a cool design, although I must admit I have absolutely no idea whether or not it’s high-quality stainless steel or trash. It’s got a decent flex and hasn’t lost its edge yet in four months of occasional heavy use, so I figure that’s a good omen.
For the technically-minded, it’s a Perceval model T45. Here it is with my everyday A.G. Russell “bowie” pocket folder for comparison.
 
 
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Perceval’s about three times heavier than the “featherlite” A.G. Russell, and has a “Z100CD17” stainless-steel blade, compared to the Russell’s ATS-34. So “Russell” is still my pocket folder of choice during the week – it’s so light I can carry it all day in the pocket of my dress slacks and can forget that it’s there — it doesn’t even “print.”
Perceval, on the other hand, tends to go outside with me on weekends clipped to the waist of my work shorts, or tucked in the watch pocket of my Levi’s.
I recommend ’em both.
Oh yeah, I figured out that at parties I can claim that I’ve named Russell and Perceval after the Lowells: the astronomer and the poet. A master of witty repartee, yep, that’s me.
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David, very cool– also note that CRKT makes (or made) a similar knife called the “K.I.S.S.”
Yeah, I’d seen that one. I think you’re right, it’s discontinued now. Unfortunately, I’ve just never cottoned to a tanto blade; clip points are what I generally prefer. It was a bit of a stretch for me to buy a drop point. OTOH, I’m really enjoying it.
AFNOR’s z100cd17 standard is roughly equal to the more familiar 440c steel in performance. It’s not going to do wonders, but it’ll get you where you need to go and back.
Not personally a fan of tantos for folders, particularly ones without a notable hand guard, but that looks to be an excellent tool.
Thanks for the steel info, Gattsuru! 440c isn’t bad. I’m still pleased with Perceval — as you say, 440c is a good utility blade.
If this thing has held its edge through that much use over that time, it beats hell out of any 440C I’ve ever seen.
“Heavy use” for me means no more than cutting light rope or twine, breaking down cardboard boxes, and other typical yard/house duties. But yeah, even at that I’ve been surprised how well it’s kept its edge.
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