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MBK Brings the Minpin Back for 2023

January 13, 2023

Monterey Bay Knives recently dropped a revision of the Minpin, the first model the company ever put out. The Minpin 2.0 features a new steel and revised lockup compared to its predecessor.

The original Minpin (short for Miniature Pinscher, by the way; Laconico is a well-known dog lover) marked the start of the MBK enterprise, which began as a way for Laconico and co-founder Sanford Owen to release production versions of their custom knives. The MinPin was first to get the MBK treatment and, like much of what followed at MBK, it approached everyday carry from a perspective both practical and visually arresting, with a harpoonish sub-3 inch blade and sweeping handle design that spoke to beauty as well as utility.

The liner lock and this specific pocket clip design are both new for the 2.0

Laconico and Owen didn’t mess what worked with the Minpin 2.0. This is not a radical redesign, but a refinement of the good bones present in the first Minpin. The most prominent change from the prior model is that, instead of S35VN, the 2.0’s blade is made from ZDP-189. If you know Ray Laconico, you know that he’s a fan of this Japanese super steel, which, even though it’s no longer a spring chicken in the metallurgical arena, still brings extremely high edge retention to the table. It is a semi-stainless steel, but Laconico and Owen have addressed that on the Minpin 2.0 with an outer cladding of a softer stainless.

Moving on down the knife, we see that the titanium handle here is contoured but solid, with no holes cut into it, as was the case on the Minpin 1. Additionally, the Minpin 1’s frame lock is gone, in its place an inset liner lock made from stainless steel. The pocket clip is visually different but functionally the same: non-reversible and made from sculpted titanium.

The MBK Minpin 2.0 is available now.

Knife in Featured Image: Monterey Bay Knives Minpin 2.0

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