There have been a lot of great pieces of gear, but the Hall of Fame is for the stuff that is, was, and always will be great. The idea is that gear in the Hall is so good and useful that even after its steel is no longer the best ever or its emitter as been updated, the gear is still something I come back to again and again.

I instituted a 5 year rule to make sure I am not in the throes of trendhunting. Thus, in order to be eligible, the product has to have been released at least 5 years ago. The stuff that makes it in this year is very, very limited. One item just crossed the 5 year mark. The other crossed it years ago. Both are exceedingly great.

TAD Hinderer Compact Dauntless

Rick Hinderer makes a lot of knives. They are almost all excellent. Some aren’t my taste (the Wharncliffe Half Track) and some are implausibly large (the XM-24). But they are almost invariably great. My personal favorites in the Hinderer line are the XM-18 3” model and the Half Track. Both have that quintessential Hinderer design and the layer of uber-polish that makes his knives both tough tools and gleaming pocket jewelry. They do get a little aggro in appearance and have a few too many screws, but that aesthetic is part and parcel of the Hinderer experience and I am okay with it here.

Triple Aught Design, on the other hand, really strives towards things with a consistent, restrained design. This is how we get what is, in my opinion, the best Hinderer-made knife of all time—the TAD Hinderer Compact Dauntless. It is a really gorgeous blade with lots and lots of function. It is thin enough to slice and thick enough to pry. It is slim in the pocket and opens with a tap of the thumb stud. This was a perfect collaboration where each party brought the thing that makes them unique and those two different aspects work well together. It is a pretty hard to find piece of kit, but it is extraordinary—a knife that stands out even in a line up of great knives. The Dauntless has been a form I have tracked and admired for a long time, but this version was one that people could afford AND find in stock on a regular basis when it was released. Some of the Dauntless models, the custom ones, are made in such small batches and there is so much interest that they basically evaporate like water on a sidewalk during a hot day.

As the years have passed, this knife has been harder and harder to find. They get snapped up in hours on Arizona Custom Knives and as the writing of this article there aren’t any on eBay, that cesspool for collectors with both money and desperation. The last ones on ACK sold for around $750, but that was a few years ago. I would not be surprised if there were a few folks willing to pay a cool grand for one. Both TAD and Hinderer have fans. I am not sure it is worth that much, but at the retail price of $460, it was steal.

In the years I have owned it I have never been disappointed to slide it into my pocket and cut stuff up. Its still super keen and it has that Dauntless goodness that makes it great. There are alternatives, the PDW Badger and the Invictus ATC, but neither was easy to deploy. This is the real deal, so accept no substitutes. I also think this is clearly the best Hinderer ever made. While the 3” XM-18 is good, it is a bit rough both visually and in the hand by comparison. The Half Track is an excellent knife, but seemingly unavailable and out of production. Even if it were still being made, it is portlier than the Dauntless. Try as you might you will never a find a knife that hits all of the same buttons as this blade, making it a worthy Hall of Fame inclusion.

If this were a real baseball Hall of Famer: Lefty Grove.

Like Lefty Grove, the Hinderer Compact Dauntless is both really good and not like anything else. Winning exactly 68% of all decisions and being lefthanded makes Grove a true standout even among the best of the best, just like the Hinderer Compact Dauntless.

Pilot Vanishing Point

We are well beyond the five year waiting period on this one with the Namiki “Capless” (this pen’s Japanese alias) being released in 1963. Shockingly, it is older than the Buck 110 (by 1 year). The pen is a marvel of engineering, something that fits well into the Japanese craftsmen mentality that designed the Spring Drive, made thin saws work on the pull stroke, and complex earthquake proof joinery. It is an excellent writer with lots of nib sizes and grinds, but it is also a truly convenient and durable pen. The stock converter is very small. I can use it up in about an hour of writing But there are cartridges and they last quite a bit longer.

There is a strong polarization around whether or not the clip placement is bad, but in my hands, it is invisible. I love the long stroke on the nock (which sounds significantly dirtier than it is) and the feedback it gives. I had a blue one that got legs and walked away. About a decade later I broke down and got a replacement and I am very glad I did. For a pen as complex as the Vanishing Point, it is very durable. And the nib is wonderful. I like my custom ground Lamy 2000 nib better, but for a production nib, the Vanishing Point is my favorite. It has a great deal of feedback and, when used correctly produces truly beautiful handwriting.

If this were a real baseball Hall of Famer: Ichiro.

I thought of this idea of pairing gear to actual Hall of Famers because of Ichiro’s selection this year, and the fit is perfect. This slim, durable, and finely tuned instrument is not different than the Mariners great. I loved watching Ichiro play because he genuinely seemed to enjoy just being on the field (the 51 year old’s ceremonial first pitch clocked in at 84 MPH this year!) and Vanishing Point, for all its great engineering, just loves to write.

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Pilot Vanishing Point