My Manix side by side with a knife from around 300 b.C.

[cabfrank]

[Bill1170]

Perhaps I should have posted this in the "what Spyderco is in your pocket.." thread, but personally find it so cool that I allow myself to make a little dedicated thread:

An acquaintance of mine is head of a small museum, and today he showed me some artifacts that are not exhibited for the public.

One of those was a knife from the later iron age ("Latene-Zeit", from about 500 to 15 before Christ). In this time period (ended with the Roman conquers) it was the Celts who inhabited the region I live in now, they did a lot of salt mining and had beautiful tools, weapons and jewelry.

I actually got to handle this Celtic knife that someone carried and used about 2300 years ago - of course just with protective gloves (protective for the knife, not for me... ). Quite a fascinating feeling and experience!

Of course I had to take a pic with the Spydie I carried today, which happened to be my REX 45 Manix LW.

Notice the rounded spine near the tip. This is obviously an ancient rescue knife for cutting charioteers and their horses free of their harnesses in emergencies.

[Wartstein]

Wow, glad so many people like that pic and post, did not expect that! Thanks!

Had no time yet to read all the replies thoroughly yet, but will do so soon.

[electro-static]

Perhaps I should have posted this in the "what Spyderco is in your pocket.." thread, but personally find it so cool that I allow myself to make a little dedicated thread:

An acquaintance of mine is head of a small museum, and today he showed me some artifacts that are not exhibited for the public.

One of those was a knife from the later iron age ("Latene-Zeit", from about 500 to 15 before Christ). In this time period (ended with the Roman conquers) it was the Celts who inhabited the region I live in now, they did a lot of salt mining and had beautiful tools, weapons and jewelry.

I actually got to handle this Celtic knife that someone carried and used about 2300 years ago - of course just with protective gloves (protective for the knife, not for me... ). Quite a fascinating feeling and experience!

Of course I had to take a pic with the Spydie I carried today, which happened to be my REX 45 Manix LW.

what is interesting to me is how little designs for large knives have changed. curved neutral handle, dropped edge, curved belly. You can see the same DNA in many modern designs.

[Cycletroll]

Love this tidbit Gernot! Thank you so much for taking the time to share it :)
Being of Celtic lineage I find it very interesting!

[mongo1958]

Perhaps I should have posted this in the "what Spyderco is in your pocket.." thread, but personally find it so cool that I allow myself to make a little dedicated thread:

An acquaintance of mine is head of a small museum, and today he showed me some artifacts that are not exhibited for the public.

One of those was a knife from the later iron age ("Latene-Zeit", from about 500 to 15 before Christ). In this time period (ended with the Roman conquers) it was the Celts who inhabited the region I live in now, they did a lot of salt mining and had beautiful tools, weapons and jewelry.

I actually got to handle this Celtic knife that someone carried and used about 2300 years ago - of course just with protective gloves (protective for the knife, not for me... ). Quite a fascinating feeling and experience!

Of course I had to take a pic with the Spydie I carried today, which happened to be my REX 45 Manix LW.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[Bolster]

This makes me wonder if Spyderco would ever be interested in extending their "Ethnic" series into fixed blades... or possibly start a "Historical" series of fixed blades...

[Cl1ff]

It’s neat to see them alongside each other!
Thank you for sharing such a cool experience.

[Cl1ff]

This makes me wonder if Spyderco would ever be interested in extending their "Ethnic" series into fixed blades... or possibly start a "Historical" series of fixed blades...

The Respect is part of the Ethnic series, so maybe!

For example, an interesting idea is a fixed blade Chokwe or Watu that has a bolster like the examples that I have seen shared of the traditional fixed blade knife those models are based on.

There are many possibilities, of course.
The Ethnic series is one of my favorites from Spyderco. I would love an “Ethnic” fixed blade by Spyderco that is a little more attainable price wise and/or more convenient to carry than a big Bowie like the Respect.

Perhaps in a REX series steel like the Manix 2 in this thread? It would be a good opportunity to employ the REXT15, REX76, etc. that Taiwan has been producing on the Mules.

[DougC-3]

I notice that the word "celt" comes from a Latin word meaning chisel, so maybe the Romans named them for their tool making tendencies instead of just the famous stone axes

[Freediver]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

[Toucan]

Interesting how modern the knife looks. Then again, 300 BCE is practically yesterday when you think about how some species of ancient human were using edged tools 3 million years ago.

5,000 years from now someone with a shovel will find the remnants of a modern folding knife. A corroded chunk of steel, and perhaps the threads of fiberglass in what was once a composite handle. Maybe it will be useful insight into a primitive people, surprising researchers with how similar we were to them. Or maybe they will be in awe of some mysterious lost technology with impossible properties. Or it might go unrecognized into the trash heap.

If there is anything remotely resembling human intelligence in 1.5 million years, I hope they find even a sliver of steel from what was once a powder metallurgy knife. Maybe they can infer from the structure that it was an intentionally created piece of material from some sort of intelligent species trying to get by. The same way we know a million year old knapped rocks were used by someone for something.

[Murphy Slaw]

That is very cool.

Even the picture is cool, would make a great poster.