Okay, okay, this one is kind of a cheap shot.

Not just because this knife is cheap per se, although it definitely is: Only $6 at the moment. Rather, it’s because I kinda-sorta posted it already.

But not really.

This knife has no real designation other than it’s non-brand name, “Treszen®,” and we are led to believe its model name is literally “EDC Pocket Knife.” I have to wonder if that ® there means whoever the hell is flogging these things on Amazon actually bothered to register their trademark in the US. Do you know, I’ll bet you a nickel they didn’t.

This knife bears more than a passing resemblance to one that I showed off in one of my very first Weird Knife Wednesday posts. That was the “SDOKEDC SD604A,” and both that and this are very nearly clones of the Scorpiodesign Shapeshifter.

All three of the above are strong contenders for the king of knives that the uninitiated are guaranteed to never be able to figure out how to open. Just let motherfuckers find out you have one of these on you and they’ll stop pestering you about borrowing your knife in a big hurry.

The action is this Rube Goldberg triple-jointed nonsense that achieves, at least according to the design goals of the Scorpiodesign original, a knife with an effective blade length longer than the handle is once it’s deployed. If you find somehow that this was a void that absolutely needed filling in your life, well, here you go.

The product description goes on to describe it as, “Special Folding Method.”

Yeah, that’s for damn sure.

It doesn’t really feature a lock as such, but when it’s all folded out your grip on the handle forces the two halves to cam together, which effectively holds it open and prevents it from folding up on you.

The critical difference here is that the Treszen here is much, much smaller than its inspiration. Small enough that you realistically could actually carry it if you were so inclined, which means I like this incarnation a lot better than the others – which, novelty aside, are entirely too large and doofy to actually keep on you. That’s the SDOKEDC on the right, there, which is near as I can figure identical in dimensions to the original Shapeshifter. And on the left, the bog standard Kershaw CQC-6K.

The Treszen is 5-1/4" long when open and 4" long closed, which puts it well within the realm of actual EDC friendly sizes. It’s also only 0.320" thick.

It’s way slimmer than the SDOKEDC/Shapeshifter. It’s about as thick as a Bugout, actually. But despite this, your EDC aspirations won’t be helped in any way whatsoever by the complete lack of any kind of clip, lanyard hole, or even perfunctory ratty nylon belt pouch. You’ll just have to let it slosh around in your pocket, I guess.

If it helps you any, though, it is extremely shiny.

That’s because it is constructed entirely of metal. What kind of metal? Who knows. The best anyone can tell us is “high carbon steel.” But because of this it weighs 61.3 grams overall or 1.16 ounces and feels denser in the hand than you’d expect. Its 2-3/16" blade has a drop point-ish profile that’s not too weird to use for things, and is 0.096" thick.

The near mirror-polished surface is, of course, a complete magnet for both scratches and fingerprints. But damned if it doesn’t give the thing an unexpectedly grown up vibe. This could, at least in dim lighting perhaps, pass for a gentleman’s knife.

Playing with it is strangely satisfying, too. But that’s only after you figure out the inherent fly in the ointment, which is that the tip of the blade by necessity pokes through one of the sections of the handle as a part of the opening process. And if you don’t know this and you’re not careful about it, it’ll poke you, too.

I’ll tell you what’s not so elegant, though. The Treszen’s build quality is actually kind of crap.

The edge grind features this rather hilarious chicane in it at the tip, for instance. I figure whoever had this on the grinding wheel must have sneezed right when they got to that part.

And but of course, the edge is gloriously out of true. At this rate, I would almost be disappointed if it weren’t. For $6, would you really deprive yourself of the amusement, nay, sheer joy of spending an hour with your very best diamond stones bullying the edge back into shape?

To its credit, the Treszen actually does away with the ridiculous gaps between all the moving parts that the old SDOKEDC featured. Despite not actually being built that well in an objective sense, this helps in making it at least superficially feel quite a bit less naff. The main pivot where the blade slides down along its track is spaced out with these nylon washers, for instance, which probably help reduce the mechanism’s friction from completely untenable to merely absurd, and also result in a fairly low amount of wiggle in the blade once it’s deployed.

I was going to take the Treszen apart to show you this, but I’m ashamed to admit that, well… I can’t.

That’s because while it’s theoretically held together with Torx screws, several of them are pre-stripped from the factory and some of the others are so malformed that they don’t fit any driver I own. Just look at them. I have no idea how the factory even managed to assemble it.

The Inevitable Conclusion

I’ve never held a knife so crappy that I liked so much.

I don’t even really know why. At the end of the day, the Treszen really isn’t any more practical than its larger brethren despite being markedly easier to carry. There still isn’t any way to describe its method of operation that does not somewhere include the words “deeply silly.” And yet.

I can say one thing about it, though, which may also be a result of its German roots: It is categorically impossible to open with one hand. That’s not a benefit anybody, except for someone who lives in a place where one-hand opening and locking knives are illegal. Like, oh, Germany. Just a thought.

Strange as it is, ridiculous as it is, I think it would take a indefensibly unreasonable leap for anyone to claim view the Treszen as a weapon. You can’t call it anything more than a pennknife. Hell, a Swiss Army Classic is just about John Rambo’s Bowie knife compared to this thing. It’s so stupid that it’s completely nonthreatening.

I mean, just look at him face. How can you not adore that?