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Fox Knives Nauta Voted Best New Slipjoint 2020

December 4, 2020

Presented by: Work Sharp Knife & Tool Sharpeners

The Fox Knives Nauta is the KnifeNews Readers’ Choice for Best New Slipjoint 2020! This seriously simple slippie surged to the senior spot, sliding past suspects like the Artisan Cutlery Biome, James Brand Pike, and Terrain 365 Otter.

As the slipjoint renaissance crested, we saw huge influxes of modern slippies: knives that took the non-locking nature of knives of yore, but changed pretty much everything else about them. This year, Fox went the other way, reaching back into their own history for the rustic Nauta.

Fox has been in the biz since the 70s, and doing OEM work for just as long. At one point, they were tapped to create a nautical folding knife for the German Navy; that design, the BÜND NAVY, inspired the Nauta.”Fox Knives supplied thousands and thousands of this model to the German Navy,” says Massimo Centazzo. “During a warehouse production reorganization about two years ago, we found some raw blades of this model and had the idea to use them while redesigning the knife completely.” So Fox took the utilitarian profile and stripped out the maritime features to create a timeless slipjoint that anybody, knife person or no, will immediately know how to use.

The original Bund Navy knife that inspired the Nauta

Maybe it all comes down to that pen blade shape; there’s just something innately relatable about it. Opened with the time-honored nail mark and made from 420HC stainless steel, there’s nothing unpredictable here – and that’s a good thing. This is the kind of quietly hardworking knife that laid the groundwork for our modern appreciation and enthusiast culture around pocket knives.

Of course, this being a Fox product in 2020, the Nauta benefits from all their modern machining capabilities and expertise. This is a finely-finished little knife, pleasing to look at, hold, carry, and show off. Fox lavished attention on its past this year, and we all benefited from it. And Centazzo also teased some expansions to the Nauta line next year. “Stay tuned…we are working on it. New variations are coming, hopefully in late fall 2021.”

Tune in on Monday as the KnifeNews Readers’ Choice Awards resume with the Best New High-End Knife 2020 (MSRP of $300 or more)!

AWARDS SCHEDULE

Monday, November 30th: Best New Tactical Fixed Blade (WINNER: Spyderco Nightstick)

Tuesday, December 1st: Best New EDC Fixed Blade (WINNER: Mora Eldris LightDuty)

Wednesday, December 2nd: Best New Outdoors Fixed Blade (WINNER: Benchmade 202 Leuku)

Thursday, December 3rd: Best New Kitchen/Culinary Knife (WINNER: Spyderco Wakiita Gyuto)

Friday, December 4th: Best New Slipjoint/Non-Locking Knife (WINNER: Fox Knives Nauta)

Monday, December 7th: Best New High-End Knife (MSRP of $300 or more)

Tuesday, December 8th: Best New Value Folder (MSRP of $100 or less)

Wednesday, December 9th: Best New Folder

Thursday, December 10th: Best Knife Upgrade

Friday, December 11th: Best Overall Lineup

Knife in Featured Image: Fox Knives Nauta

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