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Victorinox 91mm

Swiss Champ Full Tool Display In 1897, six years after he first started manufacturing the Soldier's Knife, Karl Elsener brought out his Officer's Knife. This model introduced the legendary corkscrew; some consider to be the defining tool of a Swiss Army Knife, and the secondary blade; in a new frame size - 91mm. This model was the ancestor and equivalent of today's Spartan, and spawned a whole family of models. The 91mm models offer the most variety in tool configurations, and have been used in industries from farming to space exploration.

These Officer's knives, however, have never been issued to army officers or been part of a military contract, although they were designed to be attractive to an officer with its corkscrew! An officer would purchase a knife with his own money. Strangely, however, the Officer's Knives became the quintessential  Swiss Army Knives for the public at large; once they spread beyond the military.

The Victorinox models originally just had numbers as identifiers, such as 246fmaU  (- an early 'Champion'). Descriptive names such as those in the list below, were introduced at least from the 1950s, although they were not standardised across all markets and dealers. A full cutover to the descriptive names and a new model numbering convention took place in the mid-seventies.

As can be seen from the list below: Many, many 91mm models have been produced - Most are no longer available - see note under Models.
This document reviews the current (2019) 91mm range and can be downloaded.
The external references section below has links to 91mm identification and evolution documents.

Model and Toolset Evolution: As the years progressed, the individual Victorinox tools evolved - for exmple see the pliers and scissors pages. However, occasionally the toolset in a model changed, this was particularly true of the back-tools. The most significant change here being the introduction of the hook in 1991. However sometimes, even a main toolset changed, for instance, see the Champion and Handyman pages. For the current tool to model configurations - Check the layer tables and the individual model pages (see right and below), and/or the Family Trees and Model Images section below.

Layer Index

Single Layer Models 2 Layer Models 3 Layer Models 4 Layer Models 5 Layer Models 6+ Layer Models  Image Gallery

Models

Available models (2020) are marked with an asterisk(*) and can also be seen in the Family Trees and Model Images section below.

  • Baker's Knife * - a.k.a. Bäckermesser - A differently framed (90.25mm), single-blade and use model

External Resources

Useful MultiTool.org forum threads on 91mm Swiss Army Knives

  • Vintage SAKs - Discusses vintage Swiss Army Knives and their evolution
  • SAK identification/dating - A thread with links to multiple other threads regarding the evolution and dating of Swiss Army Knives and their tools


Family Trees and Model Images


Current 91mm family tree as of 2020

Click to download PDF of current models (2020) family tree (image above)
Click for family tree image of discontinued models
Click to download PDF of discontinued models family tree (PDF version of image in above link)


Current model images (2020)




Created by ICanFixThat. Last Modification: Monday 16 of October, 2023 20:00:45 CEST by Nick4.

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Victorinox Models

Delémont Collection

Size Layers Pics
130mm 1 2 3 4 Image
85mm - 2 3 4 5 + Image
65mm 1 2 3 Image

Wenger Models

Additional Information

Additional Image Galleries Image