I’ll bet you a shiny Lincoln penny you’ll never figure out what this is if you don’t already know. I’ll give you a minute to think about it.

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It is, indeed, not a knife. But it is a knife accessory.

Do you just find that getting out your pocketknife and opening it is just too much hassle? Well, CRKT apparently has you covered right down to the ground with this: the “Merlin.”

It is a holster for most* folding pocketknives, which affixes to your belt and holds your knife in a semi-open position, ready for rapid deployment so you can be a First Response Tactical Operator look like an absolute fully rigged ocean going bell end.

No, really. CRKT calls it a “professional folding knife deployment sheath.” With a straight face. I can’t make this up.

Behold:

If I am understanding the rationale correctly here, I think this is supposed to be a cheeky legal dodge to knife laws that either prevent you from carrying a fixed blade knife or prevent you from carrying some manner of automatic opening knife like a switchblade. And further, for locations where the law has become wise to those types of guys who get clever and carry their Spydercos already open in a little Kydex sheath, like was all the rage in the early 2000’s.

This is of course operating under the rather massively flawed premise that carrying a dinky pocketknife for the purposes of first resort self defense is actually a good idea.

Anyway.

How this works is you stick your knife point first into the tapered pocket in this thing, which has a sliding billy-goat beard sort of apparatus that, when you pull it, is supposed to hold your knife with just enough friction that it’s easy to yank out but won’t just fall out on its own. Theoretically.

To assist in this, a pair of flexible wedges on these ears are provided, one of which you’re supposed to stuff into the handle of your knife. There’s one on either side, so you can use the Merlin as either a righty of a lefty.

There’s a rather bodacious belt clip on the back, and the whole ensemble can pivot about 20 degrees in either direction to, I presume, assist in busting it out. The pivot is lightly spring loaded. You can undo the screw in the middle and relocate the entire assembly relative to the clip, in one of 8 positions (per the marketing brochure) in case you like to live really dangerously and, say, dangle your knife upside down out of this thing.

Yes, yes, yes. I have spent all these words without getting around to the two points you’ve already figured out, which I can hear you screaming at your computer screen right now.

Point the first: If this is supposed to be a legal end-run around laws that prohibit you from carrying a knife in anything but the closed position, the knife you’ve stuffed into this thing also isn’t in the closed position, is it? Q.E.D. My state is actually one of those states, and our law specifically includes the verbiage, “Ordinary folding pocket knife with a blade no longer than 3 inches, carried in the closed position.”

Point the second: This is actually a really stupid, bulky, and flagrantly unsafe way to carry a knife. It self-evidently leaves a portion of the cutting edge exposed – potentially a significant portion depending on how audacious of a folder you cram in here – and neatly circumvents whatever hold-closed mechanism any knife might have such as a detent or button lock while offering nothing to replace it. You also wind up with your half-open knife riding really high on your belt so it pokes you in the ribs. Ready to get worked loose and either bite you, clatter onto the floor, or disappear into the gap between your seat and center console. And when that happens, by design it will be at least partially open. And then, if you think you’re going to actually need to pull your knife in a hurry – perhaps in some kind of hypothetical fantasy street brawl scenario – you’re going to have it on the outside of your shirt just as bold as brass ready to be yoinked by any passerby. (Or to be hassled by the cops once every nine feet.)

* Disclaimer: “Most knives” does not include…

…Knives with only one handle scale, or…

…Knives that pivot the wrong way, or…

…Knives with not enough pivots, or…

…Knives with too many pivots.

And not to beat too much on a dead horse, if your plan B is to have to magic a dinky folding knife out of your ass and get to stabbin’, maybe you need to reevaluate what plan A was.

I can’t see much of a practical use for the Merlin, which is precisely why there is one in my collection. You know how we do around here.