Like novelists have struggled to make the Great American Novel since the phrase was coined in the 1860s, knife makers have similarly struggled to produce the Great American Flipper, though for not as long. There have been many tries, but none of been successful. Here are the criteria, in case you are keeping score:

Must be a production knife;
Must be regularly produced;
Must have good flipping action; and
Must be American made.

And no, assists cannot, by definition, have good flipping action. Assists are to knife enthusiasts what driveless cars are to car enthusiasts—they are stupid.

The real hope, of course, is that the Great American Knife, aka the Sebenza, would be supplemented by the Great American Flipper. Alas, outside a bad April Fool’s joke from your’s truly, there has been no attempt at a Chris Reeve flipper. This is probably because: 1) if it ain’t broke, blah, blah, blah; and 2) Reeve the Elder HATED people fidgeting with his knives. If the IKC holds its breath for a Sebenza with a flipper tab we will all die blue faced.

Other efforts have been awful. I don’t want to traumatize you, but remember the Benchmade 300SN? Then there was the pre-Tri-Way pivot Hinderers. They weren’t flippers really, but its hard for your marketing team to sell Flopper Knives. The new ones are really quite good, as all modern Hinderers are, but they are still too jimp-tastic to earn the moniker of “great flipper.” CRKT and Kershaw are painfully addicted to assists, which, in case you forgot, stink. ZT makes good flippers if you don’t put your finger on the lockbar, which, given that most of them are frame locks, is very challenging. Spyderco has made flippers. That is all we need to write about that. Millit’s Torrent was good but not really a production knife and OOP.

In short, time and again, domestically produced, production knife flippers have been underwhelming. There is no TRM flipper (yet…please, please, please) though they have collaborated in the past on a few midtech runs. There are a lot of folks that CAN make the GAF. Its just weird that no one has yet.

The key word being “yet.”

I got the Tactile Knife Co. Rockwall in for review and it inspired this post. The American Bladeworks Model 1 is also in for review. I have had the Rockwall for three days so I am not willing to bestow the title upon it yet, but it is a contender. The Model 1 is in a similar position, but a review is in the works. Perhaps by the time of the review I will have figured out why it is so hard to make the Great American Flipper and write the Great American Novel. Until then check out this gorgeous shot of the Rockwall: