Please note that all content in this section has been imported from our old Sosakonline website and may contain broken links. We are revising it as we can, but these things take time, and it's a lot of content to get through!
With Victorinox plans to re-release a version of the original Soldier's Knife, I decided to take a closer look at Wenger's release of a similar knife last year- the 1893 Heritage ReIssue knife.
Some time ago large online retailer, Smokey Mountain Knifeworks commissioned a couple of different models, exclusive to them. Since then our own Felinevet managed to pick up a limited number of these models to supply SOSAK members. Due to circumstances in my personal life I didn't manage to jump on these as quickly as I'd have liked and only managed to get one of the two models.
Now that I have had the time to put the new Spirit X to work, I felt it was a good time to offer some insights on it to SOSAK members. The results I have may seem unimpressive, but bear in mind that I do think very highly of the Spirit series in general, and the X in particular.
As most of you know by now, I also run another organization like SOSAK, but for multitools rather than SAKs, called Multitool.org. While it's not necessarily of direct interest to many SAK collectors, there are many crossovers, like the respectable SwissTool and Spirit lines from Victorinox and the Ranger series from Wenger.
The old adage of “better late than never” has been proven by Victorinx on many occasions- the SwissTool was introduced about fifteen years after the original Leatherman PST, and yet is regarded by many as the only real contender to Leatherman's success in that market. One handed opening blades were also something that Victorinox eventually created, years after almost every other knife maker was doing, and the few models it is available on tend to be very popular- look at the number of One Handed Trekker variants in a recent article to see what I mean!
With all the attention placed firmly on the new Issue knife from Victorinox, there has been some wonder as to what will happen to Wenger's Standard Issue knife, aka the Soldat. Well, the simple answer is that nothing is happening- or rather, it will continue, at least for the time being, with only one minor change.
