On a recent shopping trip to eBay, I was looking for a knife for use while camping, hiking, and climbing. There were a ton of rambo style “survival” knives, none of which would help me survive even had I found myself without compass, tree saw, and/or waterproof matches.

I did come across an interesting listing, which upon further searching, led me to some more national transportation safety administration listings. Since 9.11, nail clippers, travel scissors and the like have been confiscated en masse from air travel passengers. Where do all those instruments of geriatric terror wind up? Glad you asked. There’s lots of hair cutting scissors, steel scissors by the 50 pound lot, multitool lots, and serious buck knife lots. The better brand names (buck, victorinox, gerber, etc) tend to be seperated so as to generate more income for the municipality selling them off, but you can still find some deals. Lots of leatherman tools, travel scissors and wire cutters are all regular lisitings. Apparently more people travel with hair cutting scissors than you’d think.

If you’re reading this and the link above doesn’t work, due to outdated eBay auctions, a search for “ntsa” (one word, no spaces) will get you to the auctions.

Josh : Tools, Raw Materials
February 10th, 2006