Okapi Knife

Okapi Knife

The Okapi is a lockback or slipjoint knife originally produced in 1902 for export to Germany's colonies in Africa. The knife takes its name from the okapi, an animal which had recently been discovered in the Belgian Congo.

The Okapi knives are no longer produced in Germany; in 1988, Okapi South Africa (then trading as All Round Tooling) bought the trademark and tooling and began producing the Okapi line of knives in South Africa. The South African Okapi lockback knives are produced with carbon or stainless steel blades, with or without serrations. The most commonly found Okapi knives in Africa are made of resin impregnated wood (usually cherry) and the blades are made of 1055 carbon steel.

Due to the use of Okapis by criminals they have been nicknamed "the Saturday night special" of knives. In Jamaica, they are both a tool and one of the more favoured of the "ratchet knives" carried by rude boy hooligans.