A boot knife or a gambler's dagger is a small fixed-blade

knife A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidence ...

(usually, a

dagger A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use de ...

) that is designed to be carried in or on a boot. Typically, such a knife is worn on a belt or under a pant leg. If worn around the neck (by means of a chain or lanyard) they become a

neck knife A neck knife is a knife worn on a cord hanging from a person's neck. It usually means a small fixed-blade knife which is carried by means of a cord, by which the knife sheath is suspended from around one's neck. They can either hang handle up (" ...

. Boot knives generally come with a sheath that includes some form of a clip. Most have double-edged blades, like a dagger, that range from 3 to 5 inches (7.62 to 12.7 cm).

History

Legal issues

A boot-knife carries with it a multitude of legal issues, as each defining factor is likely to cause legal trouble in certain jurisdictions. Some regions prohibit carrying fixed-blade knives, double edged knives (dirk or dagger), concealed knives, or knives over certain length.

Manufacturers

Boot knives have been made by companies such as

Blackjack Knives Blackjack (formerly Black Jack and Vingt-Un) is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This fami ...

Ek Knives Ek Commando Knife Co. or Ek Knives is an American combat knife brand produced by several different companies since the original founded by John Ek in 1941. In May 2014 the Ek brand was purchased by Ka-Bar which began selling its versions of Ek ...

, Valor Cutlery,

Gerber Legendary Blades Gerber Legendary Blades is an American maker of knives, multitools, and other tools for outdoors and military headquartered in Portland, Oregon. Gerber is owned by the Finnish outdoors products company Fiskars. Gerber was established in 1939 by ...

Kershaw Knives Kershaw Knives designs, sources and manufactures a wide range of knives, including pocketknives, sporting knives, and kitchen cutlery. Kershaw is a brand of Kai USA Ltd., a member of the KAI Group, headquartered in Tualatin, Oregon, United Stat ...

, Parker Bros., and Cold Steel.

References

Daggers {{Knife-stub