Miscellany: Cold Steel Pocket Shark review

The Cold Steel catalog covers everything from the useful (the well-liked Voyager line of folding knives) to the patently silly (the sjambok riding crop). Falling somewhere in between those two extremes is their entry into the "tactical pen" market, the Cold Steel Pocket Shark:


It's cheap, it's tough enough to serve as an impact weapon, and hey, it even writes:



Now, you could obviously use an ordinary marker or pen as a strike aid, so why drop the $4 on the Pocket Shark? Two reasons - first of all, the Pocket Shark has an awesome shark's jaw design on it, so the bad guy will know you mean business...err...

Actually, the only real reason this sucker holds up so well to abuse is the thick, high-impact plastic Cold Steel uses. The Pocket Shark is obscenely heavy for a felt-tip marker (2.3 ounces), and quadruple-thickness wall construction makes it difficult to snap or break. Additionally, the cap has a screw-on design that'll stay more secure than the snap-on caps of other markers.


Despite these improvements, it's still a rather gimmicky piece of kit, lacking the relaxed charm of a kubaton. The plastic pocket clip is just plain sad, and the overall build quality and writing capability won't impress anyone. But, heck, if you're unwilling to shell out the big bucks for a SureFire or Benchmade pen, this could sorta fill in...sorta. And that pricey Benchmade won't have a shark's jaw on it, you can be sure of that.