Victorinox Swiss Army Swiss Champ Pocket Knife (Red)

As a Peace Corps volunteer in the middle of nowhere, I used this knife virtually every day, and very often for something the manufacturer probably never envisioned -- from hammer to chopsticks. It never failed.

I have had this pocket knife since the early 1990s, and I have used almost all of its tools quite frequently in different situations at home and at other places. In my opinion, the Swiss Champ offers a very good combination of versatility, robustness, and reasonable size and weight to be carried in your pants' pocket if necessary. I recently replaced my old Swiss Champ by a new one from Amazon because the little springs of the pliers and the scissors were broken, the knife blades were not very sharp anymore, and everything was worn out a little bit. I think this is acceptable after almost 20 years, and I was very happy to see that the Swiss Champ was still available and that the current price in the U.S. was almost the same as the price in Europe (where I bought my first one) in the early 1990s.

I bought one of these knives awhile back and I wanted to give it a good try before I left a review. I've discovered in my time with this knife that it is a very high quality. My only "Swiss Army Knife" experience before this was with cheap knockoffs from a flea market, I had no idea that these knives were this good. I use it for everything, it's like having a portable tool kit. I work on computers for a living and it's very nice to know that if you forget something then you've almost always got a replacement somewhere on this knife. The blades stay very sharp, the saw will cut through almost any piece of wood in no time flat, the file can cut off old screws that have been stripped with ease, the pilers can be used for leverage if something is stuck or just used to loosen old nuts that the heads are stripped on. The ballpoint pen works great too, a little hard to use because of it's size but I don't normally carry a pen and now if I need one I always have one because I always carry my knife. I highly recommend this to anyone.

My husband had this for years and he lost it recently. He is very happy when I bought this for him. This is probably the most used tool in our family, and particularly on vacations and camping trips, we cannot do without this tool.

This knife was everything I expected in Victorinox quality. It's well made, and I expect it to last a lifetime like my other Victorinox knives.