The circular cutout at the top of its blades makes Spyderco pocket knives easy to identify. That hole isn’t just for looks though; it provides grip for convenient opening with the thumb. In its second of four new knife drops for 2019, Spyderco made an admission: sometimes, smaller knives are harder to open with one hand, even with that handy cutout. So it modified one of its popular compact pocket knives, the Dragonfly 2, with a unique and uncommon feature called an Emerson Opener.
An Emerson Opener is a small hook built onto a knife’s spine that’s positioned close to the handle. Admittedly, it looks a bit outlandish, almost like an unsharpened gut hook (and it accentuates the bird-like appearance of Spyderco knives in particular). But it is handy: to use it, the wielder simply clips the knife onto a pocket in a tip-up position, and when he or she draws it out the hook catches on the fabric, and the blade opens. It’s as fast as a flipper tab, and much quicker than any two-handed method of opening. Spyderco left that circular hole on the Dragonfly 2 Emerson to provide an alternative opening method too.
The Dragonfly 2 is available with the Emerson hook, or without in various blade shapes. Its blade is 2.28 inches long, making it a small yet practical tool for everyday tasks.
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