Uh, sort of. You’ll note that this one actually says “CHARDSHARP” along the top because it is, indeed, a counterfeit. So chosen because it only cost me $2.

The Iain Sinclair CardSharp (not “Ian”) has been around in various guises and revisions for quite a while. So long, in fact, that I believe this was one of the original blog-spam sort of “You Won’t Believe These 5 Must Have EDC Gadgets!” items that we’ve become so familiar with today. It was also part of the “everything the size of a credit card” fad, the wave of which has seemingly finally crested and broken. You know, phone-the-size-of-a-credit-card, tool-the-size-of-a-credit-card, usb-drive-the-size-of-a-credit-card, etc. You couldn’t get away from the fucking things for a couple of years, there.

So anyway, this.

The CardSharp fits under the heading, possibly, of Origami Knives. Along with not many others, probably. It’s a broadly rectangular slab of high density polypropylene that’s about 3/16" thick, and has several crease points moulded in. Also heat-pressed into it at four points is a thin triangular blade made of “surgical stainless” the exact alloy of which is not specified.

You can fold the thing via three creases into a little knife, with the two handle flaps pressing together via a series of friction fit studs. There is also a little plastic rotating safety latch which on my example broke off just about instantly. Which is why it’s missing in my photos.

The blurb goes on to say it’s “slimmer and lighter than an ordinary knife,” which I guess is so. Also “CardSharp makes quite the conversation piece,” which it definitely does whenever it’s brought up. But then goes on to claim it’s also “a capable pocket utility knife,” which is decidedly more dubious.

That’s because the CardSharp is extremely thin, both the plastic it’s made out of as well as its blade. There’s no tang on the blade and certainly no lockup, and the entire ensemble is worryingly flexible when it’s fully assembled. The steel blade is held onto the plastic by not very much at all. Also, after you’ve manhandled the thing into the deployed position, making it flat again afterwards is tougher than you’d think. The polypropylene flaps kind of take a set and don’t want to return to their fully flat orientation unless you clamp it in your wallet or something for a while.

But is it actually the size of a card?

I guess that depends on your kind of card.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This is precisely that sort of thing that sounds like an excellent and super exciting concept right up until the moment it actually arrives in the mail. The CardSharp is novel, for sure, but not actually terribly utilitarian even for the lightest duty of tasks. And I strongly suspect that the majority of these in the world have already been confiscated by airport security.