You may have noticed in your travels that, for some reason, you can't buy a balisong or butterfly knife on Amazon. I don't know why. They'll sell you all manner of sundry other knives, not to mention swords, gun parts, and crossbows. So making their stand for moral guardianship right at the line of selling a knife with two pivots in the middle instead of one is so nonsensical I can't even come up with a snappy metaphor for it. Go on, try it -- You'll get tons of balisong shaped things, sure: Blunt trainers, balisong pens, combs, etc. But no actual knives.

So, here's a balisong knife I bought on Amazon.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the "NedFoss Pocket Knife, EDC Folding Pocket Knife with Clip, G10 Handle, Button Lock, Compact Cool Knives for Men Every Day Carry, Outdoor Activities." As you can guess by the word-salad title, this thing is probably another Shenzen Special, being cranked out from a nondescript factory somewhere in China as a white box product that'll be endlessly rebadged and rebranded.

It is also quite possibly the least practical balisong-ish knife I've ever laid eyes on. We'll start with the blade, which is a hawkbill or charitably karambit-esque thing but it's comically short -- Less than 2" of usable cutting edge. Big ring on the end? Check. Handles of uneven length? Check. Comes with an incredibly tightly sprung pocket clip and a button snap belt sheath? Check.

But none of that is what grabs me. I have so many competently built, thoughtfully designed, high quality, practical EDC pocketknives. I really don't need another one. So to make me bother to actually put your knife in my shopping cart these days, it has to do something weird. Something interesting. Even if that something makes it, let's face facts, actually kind of bad.

This thing has a pushbutton lock release. I've never seen a balisong do that before. Press the sliver button on the handle and it lets loose the spring loaded latch, which snaps around 180 degrees ready to lock in when you mash the handles together in their open configuration. (Sometimes -- The tolerances of the latch pivot aren't actually very good, so sometimes it takes more than on try to get it to click locked.)

But, notice anything else about the latch? That's right, the latch is on the wrong side. Typically on a balisong the handle with the latch on it is the "bite handle," i.e. the one that meets the sharp side of the blade. This one is backwards, so don't fuck that up while you're playing with it. The unlock button is also pretty tough to reach if you're holding the thing in the expected karambit-ready position, with your index finger or thumb through the ring.

All of this sums up to make the NedFoss Pocket Knife, EDC Folding Pocket Knife With Et Cetera quite difficult, actually, to open with one hand. Let alone quickly. I think I'm right in saying that it's the only knife I have that not only requires incredible skill, but also luck to open successfully with one hand, because there is an element of randomness as to whether or not that latch lines up on any given attempt.

And that really does make it kind of bad. But also really weird. So here we are.

UPDATE: It seems that, via thorough internet sleuthing (read: noodling around on BladeHQ when bored) I have determined that this knife's design is a knockoff of the Mantis Vuja De. The Mantis is $80; this thing was about $20. Does the OG have 4 times the quality for 4 times the price? Can't tell you, since I don't own one. But I'd doubt it. Mantis does not seem to garner a particularly glowing recommendation anywhere themselves. The original is listed as made in Taiwan. The "Nedfoss" most likely originates from the PRC. The design is very clearly "inspired by," but you can see there are some minor differences with the design of the pocket clip, and the shape of the unlock button. I think the design is inherently fraught, personally, and would rely on unrealistically close and consistent tolerances to get the latch to line up as designed every single time, which you're probably not getting for either price point. (There are three pivots in the path of the latch from its locked closed to locked open position, including the fact that both handle pivots also influence where it lands, and the entire thing would have to remain dead flat throughout its entire travel. I suspect there is a reason traditional balisong latches are designed the way they are, such that close tolerances are not required for them to work acceptably.) Maybe an actual owner can chime in at some point.