Unusual Everyday Carry Gear V4: Seven Oddball Picks That Actually Earn Their Spot

Introduction

Everyday carry gear does not have to be sensible all the time. This roundup leans into the weird end of the category: seven items that range from genuinely clever to playfully over-engineered. Some are niche on purpose, a couple genuinely surprised us, and a few come with honest caveats about price and practicality. Here is what made the cut.

Soul Built Marksmith: A Bolt-Action Sharpie

Bolt-action pens are everywhere, but Soul Built applied the same idea to a permanent marker and the result is the Marksmith. It is an all-titanium construction marker with the same clever actuation design as the Urban Survival Gear Ti-Scribe, where the clip itself is the bolt. That means the tip cannot deploy while it rides in your pocket, which matters even more for a permanent marker than a regular pen.

The housing runs about $100, but running costs are low: the cartridge is refillable with your own permanent ink, and a two-pack of replacement felt tips costs around $5, so the marker lasts as long as you want to keep it. Availability has been spotty, though it was in stock at the time of writing.

Ion Triune Pen: A Fire Starter in Pen Form

The Ion Triune Pen looks, at first, like a normal screw-cap aluminum pen with a glass breaker on the end. Inside is a Fisher Space Pen refill, and the design holds multiple refill types with adjustable length and an O-ring that keeps the tip from wobbling. That alone would make it a decent pen.

The real party trick is the tip: it is a fire piston. Give it a sharp smack with char cloth loaded in, and it produces a glowing ember you can transfer to tinder. The removable clip doubles as an ember scoop, and a storage compartment in the cap holds spare char cloth, with an extra O-ring stashed inside as well. It is not the most practical fire starter and it takes practice, but at $75 a pen that pulls double or triple duty is genuinely fun, and it worked more reliably than expected.

Wazoo Survival Gear Cash Cap

The Cash Cap from Wazoo Survival Gear looks like an ordinary hat but hides storage everywhere. There is a pocket on the bill, a sleeve running along the bill’s perimeter, and three additional pockets inside, giving you four pockets plus one long sleeve for flat items.

The example loadout shows how flexible it is: zip ties and a small cable in the sleeve, a ferro rod tucked to one side, a bundle of needles and splinter-removal tools plus a small ceramic knife in the bill pocket, some duct tape, tinder plugs and a tiny scalpel knife elsewhere. Wazoo also sells matching Essentials kits with items like a steel cable saw, fishing gear, tinder plugs and compasses sized to fit inside the cap or the brand’s cash belt.

At about $30 it is easy to justify. It is not the flashiest style, and you can feel the thickness if you press on the bill, but worn normally it is inconspicuous and genuinely useful. A Velcro-patch version and a beanie variant also exist, though the beanie has been out of stock.

OmbraZ Armless Sunglasses

Armless sunglasses sound like a joke, and OmbraZ’s roughly $150 price tag makes the pitch even harder to believe at first. The idea is simple: instead of arms, the frames hang from a rope that loops over your head. Since the arms and their screws are the most common failure point on ordinary sunglasses, removing them removes the problem. The cord replaces the retainers many people add to their sunglasses anyway.

In practice, they look close to normal sunglasses once worn, stay in place without being tight, and the company offers several styles including versions with amber lenses. They do move around a bit, and the look will not be for everyone. But they are well made, they solve a real durability issue, and if the cord ever fails you can simply tie on a new one.

Model Outdoor Infinity Tool

The Infinity Tool from Model Outdoor is essentially an adjustable soft loop: a fabric tie that works as a soft carabiner, a tie-down strap, a reusable zip tie, or a hundred other things. It comes in 16-inch and 8-inch versions, sold in two- or four-packs.

The clever part is chaining. Loop two together and you have a 24-inch run; string more together indefinitely. Each loop is rated to 70 pounds, and looping it around twice doubles the effective capacity to 140 pounds. Use cases include hanging a backpack from a hook or tree branch, cinching gear down, or replacing disposable cable ties. A four-pack runs about $35, comparable to some fixed hardware clips, but far more versatile. This one started as a puzzle in a mail pile and ended up as a genuine favorite.

Outlery: A Packable Steel Silverware Kit

Outlery is a threaded steel silverware kit: rods, a capped end, and interchangeable heads that assemble into a spoon, a fork, and a knife sharp enough, supposedly, to cut a steak. With the included parts you can also build a pair of chopsticks. The whole set packs down into something a bit smaller than an Altoids tin.

It is definitely a step up from disposable plastic cutlery, and it proved its worth on a camping trip when every other utensil got left behind. The honest caveats: assembly takes a moment every time, and $50 is steep for a spoon, fork, knife and chopsticks when a titanium spork plus chopsticks covers most of the same ground for less. It is a truck-or-backpack item rather than a pocket one, and fine if you like the format.

PicHi X2: The Everything Pry Bar

The PicHi X2 is deliberately over-the-top. It is a titanium pry bar with a bottle opener, a nail puller, a quarter-inch bit driver that works like a T-handle wrench for leverage, a replaceable scalpel blade, and the standout feature: an auto-adjusting universal wrench head that clamps hard onto whatever fastener you slip it over.

All of that is also the problem. There is a lot going on, and the design choices get odd, such as a pocket clip mounted in the middle of the tool instead of on the included leather sheath, which makes pocket carry almost useless. Pricing is currently around $120 on the brand’s site, down from $130, with a sheath version at $150. It is gimmicky, but the wrench head alone is a genuinely useful idea if you can live with the rest.

Buying Advice

If you want practical first, the Infinity Tool and the Cash Cap offer the most everyday utility per dollar. The Marksmith and the Triune Pen are great picks if you enjoy writing tools with personality. The OmbraZ sunglasses suit people who break sunglass arms constantly. The Outlery kit makes sense for campers who like a complete set, and the PicHi X2 is best treated as a fun desk tool rather than a serious daily driver.

Conclusion

Unusual EDC gear works best when the oddity serves a purpose. Some of these picks nail that balance, others are charming despite themselves, and knowing which is which is half the fun of the category.