#HTE

The Sure Defender: An Antique Multitool of Death

While the manufacturer of this 19th-century item is unknown, the product’s name is stamped right into the brass: “The Sure Defender.”

Probably made in America, it’s essentially a multitool of death, offering a small dagger, brass knuckles, and a single-shot pistol. That’s it. If you need to open a bottle of wine or pick your teeth, try Switzerland.

The model you see here, serial #219, sold at auction for $5,000 in 2014. The auction house theorizes that this was “an early developmental or prototype model” and notes that “the absence of proof house or import marks…suggest American manufacture.”

An earlier version with the serial #150 also sold (price unknown) in 2014 at a different auction. Interestingly, we can see that they started out by carving the product name into the brass by hand, which was surely more time-consuming and expensive than #219’s stamp job.

For a closer look, collector website Littlegun offers these detail shots of a third model, serial #193:

Lastly, YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons takes a video look at the gun below. It’s these guys who place the weapon circa 1860s.