My first Pocketknife was a Schrade Old Timer that had been handed down from my Grandfather. It was your standard 3 blade stockman, just like thousands of others, but to a 10 year old boy, it meant passage into manhood.

Well, that was before The Schrade company closed their doors after 100 years of being in business, and before the name was bought and slapped on cheap knives from China that bear little resemblance to the wonderful knives of our memories.

Have you ever looked at something and thought, “Now, why didn’t I think of that”? That is the way I felt when i first saw the Leatherman Multitool.

The Leatherman is basically a folding pair of pliers, with a knife, screwdriver, file and other nifty tools in the handles. The whole thing folds up and fits in a small pouch that you can carry on your belt.

A lot of people think of the Leatherman as a knock off of the Swiss Army Knife, but while the Swiss Army Knife is a knife with a bunch of other tools, a Leatherman is more like a pair of pliers with a bunch of other tools.