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Civivi Tackles Utility Knife Trend with the Mandate

June 26, 2020

Civivi‘s newest release is the Mandate, the company’s take on the utility knife trend that has been gaining momentum lately. The Mandate incorporates the sort of touches we’ve come to expect from the brand that tweak the utility knife format into something more amenable to knife enthusiasts.

The core of the Mandate is, of course, its blade. Like most utility knives it has a straight, kiridashi-esque blade profile, with a short run of straight edge that terminates in a low, but fine, point. It stands ready to accomplish the kind of light EDC and precision chores that have always been the calling of the utility knife genre.

While most utility knives are designed to accept generic replacement blades, Civivi chose to outfit the Mandate with a proprietary replaceable blade of their own design. While that means that replacements will have to be obtained from the company itself, it does provide users with an upgraded blade steel compared to generics. Each Mandate will come preloaded with one 9Cr18MoV blade, and two additional spares made from the same steel; a single, Damascus replacement blade is also included.

The Mandate opens via a conventional slider-style mechanism. However, as the Damascus blade option might indicate, Civivi wanted to make it feel more premium and permanent than a standard utility knife; thus the handle is made from titanium, and comes in four different color choices: brown, blue, gray, or black; the Mandate even comes with a sculpted titanium pocket clip. Altogether it weighs 2.49 oz.

Besides the main cutting functionality, Civivi also incorporated two additional features into the Mandate’s handle. The blade end of the handle is a bottle opener, and at the other end the lanyard hole pulls double duty as a scalable hex wrench.

Utility knives have been enjoying a bit of a renaissance this year in the knife and EDC world. Various designs and applications are a common sight on Kickstarter these days, and earlier this year Gerber released the Prybrid, its own take on the multifunctional utility knife concept.

According to Civivi, the Mandate is expected to be available in July, with an MSRP set at $98.

Knife in Featured Image: Civivi Mandate

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