How it began
Karl Elsener opened a cutler's workshop in Ibach, in the canton of Schwyz, in 1884. In 1891 he founded the Association of Swiss Master Cutlers so that the army's knives could be made in Switzerland, and delivered the first major supply of soldier's knives to the Swiss Army. Not satisfied with that design, he created a new one in 1896 with tools attached on both sides of the handle. In 1897 it was registered as the Officer's and Sports Knife.
Before it existed
In the late 1880s the Swiss Army decided to buy a folding pocket knife for its soldiers, for opening canned food and for disassembling the service rifle introduced in 1889, which needed a screwdriver. No Swiss company had the capacity to supply it, so the first order of 15,000 knives went to Wester & Co. of Solingen, Germany, and was delivered in October 1891. That knife, the Modell 1890, had a blade, a reamer, a can opener and a screwdriver, with grips of dark oak.
How it works
Elsener's 1896 design attached tools on both sides of the handle and used a spring mechanism in which the same spring holds tools on both sides in place. This allowed twice as many features in the same handle. The 1897 Officer's and Sports Knife added a second, smaller cutting blade and a corkscrew and had wood fiber grips. It was never itself part of a military contract.
How it spread
A second Swiss maker, Paul Boéchat & Cie, later Wenger, received an army contract in 1893, and the two firms shared the army supply from 1908. Elsener named his company Victoria after his mother, who died in 1909, and after adopting stainless steel, called inox, in 1921 it became Victorinox. In 1945 the United States Army ordered large numbers of the knives for its post exchange stores, and soldiers stationed in Europe took them home. Americans coined the name Swiss Army knife because the German name, Schweizer Offiziersmesser, was hard to pronounce.
Where it stands today
Victorinox acquired Wenger in 2005. The knife has been in the permanent design collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York since 1977, and the company reported making its 500 millionth in 2017. The headquarters and factory are still in Ibach, the knife comes in more than 100 models, and most of the production is exported.
