Civivi Gordo vs Civivi Triptych: Two New EDC Knives Worth a Look

Introduction

Civivi keeps moving fast, and two new releases show exactly why: the Gordo and the Triptych. Both are compact EDC folders, both stay light on the pocket, and both take very different approaches to what a small working knife should feel like. The Gordo is a Peter Carey design with a flipper and liner lock, while the Triptych is a Civivi in-house design with a faceted spear point. Here is how they compare.

Civivi Gordo: A Small Flipper with Real Presence

The Gordo is a fun little flipper with a liner lock and thin G10 scales, available in colors like powder pink. It carries tip-down for right-hand carry with a non-reversible pocket clip, and it is a Peter Carey design. Carey is known for making genuinely beautiful artisan knives, so seeing that sensibility translated into a production knife at a street price of around $55 feels like a bargain.

The blade is D2 steel with a hollow grind and plenty of thickness for a 2.5-inch blade. Overall length is 6.3 inches, and the whole knife weighs a little under 3 oz thanks to very thin G10 and skeletonized stainless steel liners. A distinctive detail is what could be called a thumb choil up near the blade spine, a notch that gives your thumb a purchase point and makes this a surprisingly powerful little cutter for its size.

One thing to check before buying: this choil is sharp right up to the edge, unlike some knives where the sharpening choil is detuned or expressed into the handle as a finger choil. Pushing hard with your thumb near that spot could earn you a nick, so it is worth being deliberate about where your thumb sits. That is the only real caveat on an otherwise nicely executed design.

Civivi Triptych: The Faceted Workhorse

The Triptych is a spear point blade in 14C28N, Civivi’s classic house steel. It weighs about 3.4 oz, with an overall length of 6.9 inches and a blade just a hair under 3 inches. The profile is fairly svelte, and the standout detail is the faceted grind on the blade. It is not a full swedge by any means, but the tapering is more art than function, giving the blade a clean, sculpted line.

Importantly, the faceting ends well before the cutting edge, so it will not affect sharpening. The design is simple and highly skeletonized, with holes in the G10 scales that are mimicked on the inside liners as squares. It comes in black plus a few other colors, and the street price sits around $64. If you want a good workhorse, this looks like another thoughtful expression of Civivi experimenting with design details.

Which One Should You Buy?

The Gordo takes the win as a compact, characterful flipper: light, well-built, and backed by a designer with a strong artisan pedigree. The Triptych is the workhorse pick, with slightly more blade length and a steel that is easy to maintain. If you are cross-shopping, the Baby Banter is another fabulous small, thick-blade EDC worth considering alongside both.

Conclusion

Both knives reflect what Civivi does well: working with first-class designers like Peter Carey and constantly refining in-house designs in a production setting. Pick the Gordo if you want a distinctive, light flipper with real cutting power for its size; pick the Triptych if you want a clean, faceted workhorse with a versatile house steel.