Finch Snubnose: the knife that showed up and immediately made itself at home

Finch sent me a Snubnose and I want to be honest: I was already excited before I opened it. I've carried the Finch 1929 long enough that it's stopped being a knife I think about and started being a knife I just reach for. The 154CM heat treatment, the design sensibility coming out of Stilwell, Kansas, it's a brand I trust in a way that takes time to earn. So when they offered to send the Snubnose, I said yes and then immediately started managing my expectations. You love one knife from a maker, you assume the next one carries the same weight, and sometimes it doesn't, and you're too polite to say so.

The Snubnose did not give me that problem.

The True Blood Kirinite scales are the first thing you notice, a deep resin with red tones and layered patterning that means no two are identical. It's not a look that tries to be subtle and it doesn't need to be. Against the stonewashed and brushed 154CM blade it's a combination that reads as intentional rather than decorative, confident rather than loud. The finish on the blade itself is worth noting: the satin and stonewash combination gives it the look of a knife that's already been somewhere, which pairs well with something this compact and carry-oriented.

At 2.5 inches the blade is short enough to go anywhere without a conversation, and the snub-nosed geometry, that clipped, purposeful tip, makes it one of the least threatening-looking knives you can put in a pocket while still being genuinely useful. The wire clip is minimal in the best way. At 3.5 oz it carries like it isn't there.

Here's where I'll say something that I mean carefully: there are things about the Snubnose that are better than the 1929. Not better in a way that diminishes the 1929, that knife represents a specific design moment and carries years of daily use in its scales, and I won't be retiring it. But the Snubnose is lighter, more pocketable, less precious. It's the kind of knife you open without thinking about it, use without worrying about it, and put back in your pocket without ceremony. The 1929 taught me what Finch is capable of. The Snubnose showed me that they've kept going. That's what mastery looks like when a maker doesn't stop at the knife that made them, they take what they learned and make something that does a different job just as well or better. The 1929 is the knife I'd carry to a dinner where knives are a conversation piece. The Snubnose is the knife I actually carry everywhere else.

Two weeks in and I haven't reached for anything else. That's not something I say lightly.

Vosteed Corgi V (all black): the knife that doesn't look like a knife

2.4 inches of blacked-out 14C28N, a Vanchor lock, and a realization I had on vacation about what it means for a knife to hide in plain sight.

I was packing up to check out of a hotel room. Sunglasses on the dresser, wallet on the dresser, room key on the dresser, Corgi V on the dresser. I reached for my sunglasses, glanced at the lineup, and for just a moment my eye slid right over the knife. I had to double back and consciously register: that's the knife. It wasn't hiding. It was just sitting there in full view, and it barely read as a knife at all.

The fully blacked-out Corgi V, black aluminum handles, black 14C28N blade, black clip, black hardware, occupies a visual register that has more in common with a tactical pen or a nice lighter than with a folding knife. The symmetrical handle design is part of it: the Corgi platform closes to a profile that's almost perfectly bilateral, no thumb ramp break, no finger groove interruption, no obvious spine orientation from ten feet away. Add the all-black finish and the result is something that reads more as an object than a tool. A device. Something electronic, maybe, or precision-machined for a purpose you can't immediately identify.

This is not an accident, exactly, but I don't think Vosteed set out to make a knife that disappears in plain sight. The visual effect is an emergent property of a design built around symmetry and carry comfort. The 180-degree closing geometry, the blade rotating fully down rather than folding the conventional way, means the closed profile really is that clean. Add the full blackout colorway and it tips over the edge from "compact folding knife" into "ambiguous precision object."

The knife itself is genuinely good at its price. At 2.7–2.9 oz it's light enough to forget. The 2.4" 14C28N drop point flat grinds efficiently and sharpens easily, it's not a premium steel but it performs appropriately for a vacation carry you're using to open packaging, cut food, or do whatever the trip asks. The Vanchor lock engages with a smooth, almost magnetic click that's more satisfying than the price suggests. The dual front flipper and standard flipper openers mean you can deploy it from multiple grips without thinking about it. The reversible clip disappears into the pocket.

What I keep coming back to is what it means for a knife to hide in plain sight rather than hiding in a pocket. Most knives that are "discreet" achieve that by being small enough to be invisible. The blacked-out Corgi V is visible, it's just not identifiable as a knife unless you look at it with intention. That's a different kind of discreet, and it turns out to be more useful in practice. It's the kind of knife you can set on a desk or a table or a hotel dresser without triggering any particular reaction from anyone who sees it, because nobody looking at it is going to immediately categorize it and respond to that category.

I've been calling it the device knife. I don't have a better name for it yet.

Vosteed Porcupine TiSlim: the TiSlim concept finally with the lock it deserved

S90V, Grade 5 titanium, 0.315" thick. But the real story is the lock, and what it means that Vosteed chose it.

Vosteed introduced the TiSlim concept with the Parallel in 2024: Grade 5 titanium handles machined to an extraordinary 0.28" overall thickness, a crossbar lock, a wire clip, a 2.9" reverse tanto blade. It was a statement knife. The message was that you could have slim-carry titanium EDC performance at a price, $129 for 154CM, $149 for S35VN, that the market hadn't seen for this material tier before.

The Raccoon TiSlim followed the same formula. Same crossbar lock, same Grade 5 titanium construction, 3.18" blade in 154CM or S35VN, starting at $135. It took the beloved Raccoon platform and stripped it down to its essential geometry, keeping the design familiar but making the carry profile dramatically thinner. Both are excellent knives. Both use the crossbar lock.

The Porcupine TiSlim changes one thing, and that one thing matters more than it might initially appear.

The lock argument

The crossbar lock. Benchmade calls theirs AXIS, Kizer calls theirs a button liner, is an excellent lock mechanism for most purposes. Ambidextrous, strong, satisfying to operate. The Parallel and Raccoon TiSlim both benefit from it. But there is a specific way in which the top liner lock on the Porcupine TiSlim is superior for the particular kind of carry these ultra-slim knives are designed for.

A top liner lock actuated by a button keeps your fingers entirely clear of the blade path during both opening and closing. You press the button, the lock releases, the blade folds down, no fingers crossing the edge at any point in the operation. This makes the Porcupine TiSlim significantly more fidget-friendly than its siblings, because you can open and close it one-handed without the careful finger placement that a crossbar lock requires to avoid the edge. In a slim titanium knife you're going to be handling constantly, because the whole point of ultra-thin carry is that it's always in your pocket, that distinction compounds over months of daily use into a meaningfully different experience.

It also means the Porcupine TiSlim is the most office-appropriate knife in the TiSlim family, for the same reason the CJRB Mica and the Artisan Cleo are: a button-actuated lock that closes without fingers in the danger zone reads as deliberate and controlled rather than casual, which matters in professional carry contexts.

The knife itself

The blade is 3.04" of drop point in your choice of 154CM ($139) or S90V ($179). The Grade 5 titanium handles are precision CNC-machined and carefully chamfered at 0.315" total thickness, slightly thicker than the Parallel's 0.28" but still extraordinarily slim for a 3" EDC folder. A large aluminum backspacer reinforces the structure without adding weight. Dual-tone thumb studs in the Porcupine's signature texture. Spine jimping where control matters. A 3D-milled titanium clip that echoes the handle texture. Recessed lanyard hole. Titanium-coated T8 screws.

The S90V version deserves a specific mention: Grade 5 titanium handles and S90V steel at $179 is a combination that should cost considerably more than it does. S90V holds an edge through months of daily carry without complaint. It is harder to sharpen than 154CM when you do need to reset it, diamond stones rather than ceramic, but for a knife this thin that lives in a pocket doing light daily work, you may go a very long time before you need to. The 154CM version at $139 is the more forgiving choice; the S90V at $179 is the one you buy if you want to carry it for a year and not think about sharpening.

The siblings

If the top liner lock is the wrong choice for your carry style, if you specifically want ambidextrous operation and enjoy the crossbar feel, both TiSlim siblings are worth your time. The ($129–169) is the thinnest of the three at 0.28" and carries the most minimal aesthetic, with a reverse tanto blade that reads as design-forward. The ($135–175) takes the most beloved Vosteed design language and applies the TiSlim treatment to it, which means the ergonomics are deeply familiar if you've carried a Raccoon before. Both excellent. Both crossbar locks.

A note on what comes next

The Porcupine TiSlim is a 3" knife in a package thin enough to forget you're carrying it. The Raccoon TiSlim is a 3.18" knife in a similar package. The Parallel is 2.9". We are holding out hope that Vosteed continues down this path, specifically, that the TiSlim treatment eventually reaches something in the neighborhood of the Corgi V's 2.4" blade and genuinely compact overall geometry. The standard Corgi V at its current dimensions is already a fantastic small carry at $72–82, but a TiSlim version in Grade 5 titanium at this scale would fill a gap in the lineup that nobody else is filling.

The more interesting question is whether such a knife would use a top liner lock, the natural continuation of the Porcupine TiSlim's evolution, or whether Vosteed could engineer a Vanchor lock thin enough to work in a TiSlim handle. The Vanchor lock is the Corgi family's signature mechanism: a fidget-friendly, button-actuated system with a distinctly smooth and magnetic-feeling engagement that's different from a conventional top liner. Getting that mechanism into a sub-0.32" titanium handle without compromising either the lock geometry or the structural integrity of the handle would be a genuine engineering challenge. Vosteed has surprised us before. We wouldn't rule it out.