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I’ve been carrying a Utili-Key on my keychain for about 20 years. It’s rarely quite the right tool for the job, but it’s always at hand and usually gets the job done, which is infinitely better than not having any tool! I carried my Leatherman Wave for a while but hauling 9 ounces of steel on my belt is incredible overkill for how often I need it!

A new in-law saw me using mine and asked for one. Thus began a hunt for a Utili-key! It’s turning out to be very hard! I think the company doesn’t make them any more and there’s a lot of crappy knock-offs out there. The in-law is my wife’s brother’s son’s new wife’s father John!

I looked online but couldn’t find a vendor on the company’s list that actually sells it. I bought some from Temu.com and they were all crap. Each one failed in a different way. One has sharp burrs, one doesn’t close, one doesn’t open, none have a decent regular-head screwdriver, etc. I bought some from eBay and they were crap in authentic looking packaging.

Here’s one of my authentic Utili-Keys (on the left) compared to a knock-off from Temu.

I’m coming to believe that this represents real packaging, and this represents knock-off packaging:

Real Utili-key packaging

.

Fake Utili-key packaging??

But who the heck knows.

Update 10-28-23: I bought a Utili-key from a seller on eBay in the “real” packaging as seen above and it turns out to be a legit Utili-Key! Hurray! Here is the actual, real packaging: