Since I have balisongs on my mind lately. But then, when don't I have balisongs on my mind?

"That's just an ugly one of them butterfly knives. What's so weird about that?"

Well...

It's a grand total of 3-1/2" long when fully deployed, for a start. The perfect rebuttal, perhaps, to people who say that balisongs are too big and scary for EDC use. This entire thing is smaller than some people's EDC knife blades.

So a short and sweet post today (ha, "short") with this, the 105XSSL. Don't bother looking for a maker's mark; you won't find one. This is straight from Shenzen to you, via whatever your favorite supplier of generic mainland cutlery is. One wonders about the though process behind the SKU as well. Extra small small large?

It'd be tough to fill a page about this knife. It's got a dinky little drop point blade, dinky little kicker pins, and a dinkly little fully functional latch. Mine actually came with a keychain attachment originally, too, but this was not only crap but also interfered with the swing of the latch. So I ditched it. But the handle castings are surprisingly not terrible for the price (which is about $4), and it has real Torx head fasteners and everything.

And despite being just roughly HO scale, this little knife is actually surprisingly usable. The pivots work okay and so does the latch, but there's nothing fancy going on in there -- just plain washers. It is roughly on par with various urban-carry micro knives in terms of size and utility. Or you could use it to make your doll house the most badass one in the entire neighborhood.

Here it is next to a Benchmade Model 42.

(Don't ever talk to me or my son again!)