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Knife Maker Spotlight – Fred Perrin
- Design, Knife Styles, Knifemaker Spotlight
- May 27, 2022
Our very first blog post here was on French knifemaker Fred Perrin, which you can find here: Fred Perrin article. So I guess this could be considered a throwback. The reason for the throwback is because we just received a new shipment of knives from Fred, some old favorites, some new things, and some new twists on a few classics.
If you’re looking for an affordable, comfortable, easy to carry small fixed blade, you’d be hard pressed to do better than these knives here. The Peeler, Fruit Knife, and Pocket Tanto are compact, come with a well fitted kydex sheath, and have a level of finish normally associated with a more expensive knife. The Peeler has a two finger handle, which includes a lanyard hole, if you wish to add one, and a nice, shallow hawkbill style curve to its blade. Great for utility use, and as a concealable hide away defensive knife. The Fruit Knife has a coffin shaped handle that presents neutral, so you can use it in any grip style you wish, and a more aggressive curve on the short blade. Next we have the Pocket Tanto, which, as its name implies, has an American Tanto style blade on a three finger handle, and is beefy enough to handle just about anything you need such a small fixed blade to do.
Following Freds appreciation for all things WWII/OSS inspired, he sent us his Mini-Pic, and the new Mini-Slasher. Both are extremely minimalist claw type blades, with a big nod towards the OSS Tire Slashers. Both are shipped with kydex sheaths, and are perfect for covert carry.
Over the last few years, Fred has started doing some collaborations with other people in the knife world, and we have two of the latest.
In conjunction with Michael Janich of Martial Blade Craft, or MBC, they have produced the Confusion. The Confusion has the trademark Wharncliffe blade that Mr. Janich advocates, this is an aggressive, short but thick defensive knife perfectly suited for the urban environment. Along with the wharncliffe blade, the Confusion has a unique pistol shaped handle that reduces the overall length while still being fully functional, but also allowing deployment as a push knife if you’d like to use it that way. Available in both 440C stainless or in titanium, a kydex sheath, and a nice padded pouch, this limited edition knife does a great job.
The next collaboration we received is the Griffed, from Fred and custom knife maker Ed Schempp. This knife is all the good things about a LaGriffe, but bigger. It has a hybrid blade that looks like a recurve spear point, the trademark Perrin fingerhole, and a large pistol grip handle with nice finger grooves, and micarta handle scales. The sheath carries and presents the knife in the same manner as a snubby revolver, so the drawstroke will be familiar. All the corners are nicely chamfered and rounded to provide great comfort, even during long term use. As with all of the LaGriffe family, the Griffed is ready for both defense and utility use.
And, speaking of the LaGriffe family, ours in-store has expanded. First, there has been a change in the regular LaGriffe production. Instead of being chisel ground, the new models are V ground on both sides. There is also more variety in this supply. Skeletonized black, titanium, the black LaGriffe with nice thick G10 scales, and the new Shorty, in black, which has G10 scaled handles similar to the LeShark, but a wharncliffe style blade closer to the size of the Griffe.