Patina, Rust, Knife, Pretention: Gus Stevens

Patina is a more favourable term than rust. One implies sophistication, the other neglect. Both are simply the accumulation of oxides on the surface.

It's a simple folding knife, one carbon steel blade on one hinge fitted snugly into a rosewood handle. It's handsome, and masculine, and seems at home in an old leather satchel. If it had a smell, it'd be salt water and hardwoods. It's the Robert Redford of pocket knives. Along one end, there is an embossed brass anchor and thus it looks like some kind of heirloom for a lineage of sailors.

I received the knife from my father a number of years ago as a birthday present. My father made his living in the Navy and so I sometimes consider inventing a history for the knife, assigning it a noble career helping my father cut lengths of rope, but in truth he purchased it online because I'd added it to a digital wish list. It has no history; I am it's first owner, and I use it to cut sausages.