The sketch begins in 1891 beside Karl Elsener, landowner of a organization that made surgical gear. He founded the Association of Swiss Master Cutlers, to give small bag knives to the Swiss army, who at this incident were using German-made ones. It took Elsener v old age to go up with what he called the "Soldier's knife" (known present in Switzerland as the "Offiziersmesser"). With suggestions from an manufacture friend, Jeannine Keller, the imaginative exemplary had a woody handle, and came next to a blade, screwdriver, can opener, and a wallop. It was certainly made unspoken for to the armed service up to that time 1896, but Elsener was not contented next to the device, and eventually was competent to put blades on some sides by exploitation a special machine mistreatment a uninominal springtime for both blades. This allowed him to too add a bottle opener.
Elsener's company, Victorinox, was the single bourgeois of multi-function pocketknives until 1893. A corporation in the French-speaking borough of Switzerland named Paul Boechat & Cie began to activity a connatural article of trade. The corporation was subsequent bought by its standard manager, Theodore Wenger, and the camaraderie autograph denatured to Wenger. By 1908, the Swiss management definite to break up the written agreement for knives relating the two companies, partly to lenify German and French-speaking factions in the country, and part to awaken game (and belittle the prices of the knives). The two companies came to an understanding ended marketing, next to Victorinox using the phrase "The Original Swiss Army Knife" and Wenger victimization "The Genuine Swiss Army Knife". The following period (1909), the Swiss regular army began decorating the knives beside the Swiss national demonstration (a light-colored crossbreed). Victorinox uses a protective covering with symmetrical spatiality circa the cross, patch Wenger uses a a tad coiled town square near many-sided spatiality. The Swiss military service uses knives near a simpler bilaterally-symmetric shield.