Hasta La Ideas

After last year’s NYIGF we showed you these cool, vintage Swiss Army flashlights. They reportedly first went into service in 1950, and we love the quaintly utilitarian industrial design. This stop-motion vid put together by a retailer gives you a look at how the device works, and what it looks like both inside and out:

The form factor and the leather strap on the back make it clear it’s not supposed to be handheld, but rather affixed to a strap or belt on the front of a uniform. Makes sense—Swiss Army guys needed both hands free to get that corkscrew open.

As cool looking as these things are, apparently they’re not flying off of the shelves; the retailer’s recently cut the price from $35 to $27.

So what does the Swiss Army carry these days for illumination? Up until recently, supplier Victorinox was manufacturing the purty LED torches seen below. Recently they’ve mysteriously disappeared from the product lineup on Victorinox’s website, though some retail sites still have them in stock; perhaps a redesign is in the works.

[photo by Jens Johnson]

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