Zenith CP-2, a New Riff for Vintage Mil Watch Fans.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1M ago
A wrong, righted. In the spring of 2016, Zenith announced they would reissue their historic cronometro polso, or wrist chronograph, and I was immediately smitten. That fall, I found a brand new one at an authorized dealer in the US, but the $7700 price tag was out of my reach. When the AD sensed I was wriggling off the hook, they offered a significant discount off retail and 0% financing for a year. I took the bait hook, line, and sinker. I registered the watch with Zenith to extend my warranty and proceeded to fall head over heels with it over the next several years. The Zenith CP-2 on Horwe ..read more
Visit website
Darmok, With Flags Unfurled! Collecting the Camillus Semaphore Scout Knives of the 1920's-40's.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
2M ago
Ok, with apologies to Star Trek: The Next Generation, I just couldn’t help myself, so let me back up a little and explain. “Darmok” is perhaps my favorite Next Gen episode, and introduces us to Dathon, the captain of an alien ship who speaks only in metaphor. Some of his more famous metaphors have become memes, but I won’t quote them here; follow the link if you’re curious. At any rate, it takes Captain Jean-Luc Picard most of the entire episode to solve this riddle, and for some reason it seems like something Dathon might have said when he was trying to infer that Picard could use a scout/uti ..read more
Visit website
Song of the Humpback, Part 2: the Sportmesser Turns 100.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
3M ago
Sportmesser, the most beautiful of the scout/camp knives. Welcome to Part 2 of my one-part series on collecting the Böker 182 and other makes of sportmesser, the humpback 6-blade scout pattern pocket knife. If you arrived here via a search engine and haven’t yet read Part 1, you can find it here. In that article, I touched on the origins and history of the pattern, most notably the Remington R3843 and Böker 182, and discussed a few pointers for collectors. That article has proven popular, so I thought I’d revisit the topic and share what I’ve learned about these beautiful pocket knives in the ..read more
Visit website
Through the Decades: Collecting the Boker 9361 Scout/Utility Knife, Part 2.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
Welcome to Part 2 of my two-part article on the Boker 9361, a classic four-blade American-made scout/utility knife. Part 1 covered the origins of the 9361 in the 1920’s and takes the reader through the Golden Age of this pocket knife when design, materials, and workmanship peaked in the mid-1960’s or thereabouts. We left off with the ca. 1960 tool set updates — an improved, two-piece can opener and, for the first time, a pen blade. It’s good to have a user/carrier. 1965-1970, the New Britain Machine Era. Boker USA was bought by the New Britain Machine Company in 1965, joining well respected t ..read more
Visit website
Through the Decades: Collecting the Boker 9361 Scout/Utility Knife, Part 1.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
Of cheeseburgers and pocket knives. I was thinking about my favorite cheeseburgers the other day, and it occurred to me that they all derive from one of two classic styles. You have your classic homestyle burger that can be as simple as Ron Swanson’s, but can also be run through the garden and served deluxe, like a Burger King Whopper. But then you have your diner burger, which is often but not always a double-decker and includes a more complex sauce but fewer other toppings. The McDonald’s Big Mac would be the archetypical diner burger; I can still recite its recipe jingle today. One day over ..read more
Visit website
To Angel's Envy, on Wings of Hope: Bourbon Tasting with the Oris Big Crown ref 7781.4081
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
Me and Kentucky. I finished growing up in western Kentucky, which used to be known for tobacco, bourbon whiskey, and unique barbecue. I returned to the Great Lakes after college and settled about 500 miles from the Ohio River Valley, but I like to get back once in a while to visit. These days you don’t see the tobacco fields like you used to, but barbecue and bourbon are booming. I had recently become curious about the Louisville Distilling Co.’s Angel’s Envy whiskeys, so when my new Oris Big Crown Wings of Hope LE arrived I decided that what was needed was a road trip. I recruited a bourbon-l ..read more
Visit website
Paired for adventure: the Omega Seamaster 300 ref 165.024 and Case 6445R scout/utility knife.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
Vintage tools for vintage-style adventure. Most people reach a point when they’re still interested in camping as a means of travel and recreation, but are just kinda done with sleeping on the ground. For me, this point was last year. Our 2021 summer vacation was spent in an AutoHome car-top tent that I mounted to a modified Sherpa trailer. I towed this little camperette behind our short wheelbase Jeep and found the combination pretty unbeatable for camping comfortably while still getting well off the beaten track. The trailer build project was a year in the works and the trip itself only two w ..read more
Visit website
Song of the Humpback: Collecting the Böker 182 and Other Humpback 6-Bladed Scout/Camp Knives
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
The knives of boyhood. I discovered Swiss Army Knives and Victorinox as a 13-year-old with lawn mowing money burning a hole in his pocket.  After that first 84 mm Tinker, the hook was set.  But even before that first Tinker, I owned and lost a few inexpensive American-made 4-blade scout/camp knives as a younger boy.  I always wondered why the handles, which I now know were Delrin, had that funny texture and looked the way they did.  I didn’t understand they were emulating jigged bone, itself a natural material used as a cheaper alternative to genuine antler, the über-tradit ..read more
Visit website
A tale of three Seamaster 300's. New meets old, meets new again.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
Through a strange set of circumstances that only a watch nut would understand, I now find myself in possession of three Omega Seamaster 300’s. On its own, this might seem understandable; I’m sure that someone reading this article will be thinking, “Wait, this is weird?” After all, it’s well known that things like Omega Seamasters and Victorinox Pioneers do have a way of coming and going over the years, and sometimes piling up. Some of us are passive accumulators and some active hoarders, but in my case, I will plead Temporary Seamaster Insanity. If you were thinking you had a couple things you ..read more
Visit website
French and German Scout Pattern Knives: Thinking Outside the SAK Box.
The Rover Haven Blog
by Myron Erickson
1y ago
There’s More to Life Than a SAK? Lately I’ve been in a French and German pocket knife mood. Although the Victorinox Pioneer and its three-layer cousins the Farmer and Pioneer X will probably always be my all-time favorite pocket knives, there is a whole world of other makers and patterns to discover from the historic knife-making centers of France and Germany. They tend to be under-represented in the US and can be challenging to obtain, but they are starting to make inroads in the American market. And it’s understandable, as I have to believe that competing against industrial juggernauts like ..read more
Visit website

Follow The Rover Haven Blog on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR