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Pros: Weight, Ease of Opening, Handle Material, Blade Material, Blade Sharpness
Cons: Pocket Clip
Beautiful knife. May have QC issues.
I'd been looking for a knife like this for months, but every competitor seemed like I was compromising on something I wanted: locking front flipper with classy looking scales and a gucci bladesteel. (The Gunslinger Jack from a couple weeks ago would've been mine if it hadn't sold out so fast!) I chose this as a piece of pocket jewelry, specifically something to wear to weddings/formal gatherings. It's a good size, beautiful marbled carbon scales, and folds away into a very clean looking form factor. This is my first front flipper so I was practicing the opening action pretty aggressively the first day I got it. It had to have been less than 30 openings though when I started noticing the blade wobbling. It went downhill from there and soon there was so much slop it was audibly clicking when jiggling it back and forth. Theres a T9 pivot screw under the scale on the branded side of the knife. Tighten it back up and you should be good to go. Add some locktite if it's a recurring issue for you. I also had an issue trying to get the scale off the other side. The last screw down by the pocket clip is either over tightened or locktited in place, and being a 2.5mm flathead screw, I'm not going to try to loosen it again. I love the overall design of the knife. Two gripes about it though. One, the spine mounted pocket clip is annoying. It tends to want to orient itself the fatter way in your pocket instead of the flatter way. Not a huge deal, because the trade-off is you get to see the sweet scales unobstructed and I think it does look classier that way. Two, I wish the branding on the knife was stealthier, or just looked a little nicer. They crammed everything onto one side of the blade. The logo--a solid black circle with an "M" cut away from it--the name "Maserin", and "ELMAX STEEL ITALY". The logo is kind of lazy and redundant having it next to the company name. I'd honestly prefer if the blade said nothing, but breaking it up so it read "Elmax Italy" on the other side would also help with the aesthetics. I'm going to try living with it like this for awhile, but I may take a dremel to it someday to polish off the logo and/or company name.