For the longest time I have been searching for a quality spider/valet style keychain. I tried the Bison Designs one from REI, the Wenger was good but expensive and brass so too heavy, and the EDC forums one failed twice on me (but John had excellent customer service and replaced them for free). Nonetheless, after having an EDC forum key spider throw my apartment key in the middle of a parking lot at 2AM, causing me to search for an hour just to be able to get into my apartment, I knew I had to get another one.

I did some research and through one of the kind posters on this forum, discovered that a company called Troika had the US patent for this style keychain. I tracked their US website down (it’s like the only place on the entire internet I could find it for sale and ordered one.

http://www.troika-usa.com/product.php?productid=66&cat=6&page=3

Shipping was fast and cheap ($5 for USPS priority, 2 day delivery). I received the keychain today. It came in a beautiful sheath style cardboard box with a custom formed faux-velvet molded insert to keep the keychain in it’s place. IF you were to give one as a gift, all you would have to do is wrap it. Presentation is a solid A for a keychain.

Upon opening it, the immediate impression is “quality”. The presentation, while fantastic, is outdone by the workmanship – which appears absolutely perfect. Of course, I do not know how well this will hold up over prolonged use yet, but there are certain signs which point to intelligent engineering. First of all, the “balls” on the end of the stalk which hold the keyrings to the center circle are much larger than previous brands. This makes it much harder for keys to slip out. Second, and this is huge for me, is that it DOES NOT have a seam in the middle held together by two weak joints which constantly need peening. You can see this in the pictures below. This was the point of failure on the EDC forums model – the peens (not sure if this is correct term) would become loose, which led to the keychain expanding in at the middle seam. Combined with the too-small balls, the keys would constantly fall off. Third, the metal is simply higher quality – buttery smooth, yet firm spring gate action, and even the split rings are made of the same high quality, strong metal. It almost feels like titanium, but I know it’s not as the split rings still retain the memory function that titanium rings lack.

Also, as a nice bonus, it comes with six standard split rings, PLUS a extremely high quality hook that you can use to clip to a belt loop. I forgot to take a picture of it (I took it off as I won’t use it) but I can grab some later if people are interested.

Split ring comparision – Troika is on the left and EDC Forum model is on the right

Keeps things hanging nicely!

When it comes down to it, while $20 shipped may seem like a ridiculous expense to the non-initiated, my keychain is something that I not only use every single day, but that I must be able to rely on to safeguard about $100-150 worth of tools, depending on how it is loaded. I can’t be losing keys constantly.

I’ll report back in a month or so with an update, but from what I can tell already, this Troika Patent is a sure winner.