When I started riding horses I was disappointed to discover that:
a) There isn’t a tool on a normal Swiss Army knife for removing stones from horses’ hoofs
b) A tool like that (they’re called ‘hoof picks’) would be a very useful thing to have on a Swiss Army knife if you rode horses
I haven’t since checked to see if they make an equestrian model
In the mid 90s, I was given a fairly hefty Swiss Army Knife as a leaving present from work. It’s got all the usual gubbins; screwdriver, toothpick, flamethrower etc. But there’s one thing which always baffled me.
On the back, in so far as these things have a ‘back’, is a fold-out hook. It’s fairly thick, and an odd shape, with a little nodule sticking out.
In the absence of either the Web or any explanation in the packaging, my friends and I speculated on and off for years about what it might be for. Is it some sort of specialist tool used in fishing or sailing? Are you supposed to carry things with it, turning the knife into a makeshift handle? Is it for winding something, making twine or suchlike?
Years later I remembered this quandary, and now having access to the Web I jumped onto Victorinox’s website and looked it up. Finally, I could put this puzzle to rest.
According to the official website, it’s a “general purpose hook.”
😀 I always imagined it was for some Macgyver style escape down a washing line or such like, such was it’s positioning allowing maximum purchase on the knife body.
Are you supposed to carry things with it, turning the knife into a makeshift handle?
In the instructions with my first Swiss Army knife in the ’80s it specified it was for carrying string parcels! Now they’re less common I guess it’s been rebranded…
A quick Google would suggest it was introduced in 1991, so it’d seem unlikely that you had one in the 80s (unless the Internet is wrong, and what are the odds of that?!)
Seems you might be right about the usage though. The official site now reads “multi-purpose hook (parcel carrier)”, which has been changed since I last looked at it.
Posted 10 years ago
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