The Altoids EDC Kit I've used for 8+ years

Altoids Kits are awesome. And this is the kit that I've used at least every week for over 8 years. Links below with alternatives for those items that were hard to find now.

Use code LANDMANEDC for 10% your order at CountyComm!

Looks like it hard to get the Leatherman CS or PS anymore, so here's two alternatives:

Found a Stanley ratchet set just like the ratchet I have in the video:

[BobTheBuilder]

I keep a broken mirror piece taped to the inside of the lid in mine. No matter how bad the situation becomes i can always remind myself how handsome i am.

[patmickler]

Nobody ever mentions putting alchohol pads in their tins. They are thin, small, and great fire starters, and good for minor wounds, and cleaning lenses like glasses, binoculars, ect.

[wildweasel]

I carried a Doug Ritter inspired Altoids Kit in the cargo pocket of my 5.11s, amounting to 6 years of deployments to the Middle East. With a yearly battery replacement for the Microlite and water purification tablets it still travels with me for a total of 15 years.

[vensheaalara]

As a side note, altoid tins are made of thin steel, not aluminum, which is why it's magnetic. I say this to point out that it may have more versatility due to its material, including using magnets for storage or mounting purposes.

[unfi]

After 8 years of usage reckon just leave it as it is and make up another Altoid to compliment it, making adjustment for urban & outdoors activities. Great show mate.

[scenicdriveways]

Chad,
I'm retired and handicapped, I walk with the help of a cane, so I don't get to be very useful to people very often. That's why I love carrying my EDC gear.
If we're fishing and someone needs a small screwdriver to tighten a loose screw on their fishing rod, I got it covered.
If I'm sitting on a bench outside waiting for my wife to finish shopping and a young kid falls and scrapes their hand or knee, I can offer his parents a Band-Aid.
If we're in a building and the power goes out, I can safely lead the way out with my flashlight.
If someone gets a sliver, or a Bee sting, I have tweezers that can pull the sliver or bee stinger out.
You get the idea. Carrying my EDC items allows me to be of help and to be useful to someone again, and I love that.

JT

[ElizabethCar]

I have an Altoid kit for when I travel across the states to see family. It has $200 emergency cash that will buy my Prius a full tank of gas, get me a hotel room, food and drink. A multipurpose tool, miniature cell phone charging cable and plug-in, and a few other things to help me in a pinch on the road. I have thankfully never needed the cash, but I keep it for peace of mind for me and my family. Because of the cash I store the tin in an uncommon place in my car.

[benreynolds]

Nice vid. FYI, the Leatherman Style PS is the one that's TSA compliant. That tiny blade on the CS is what gets it taken.
I've flown with the PS several times. I also stopped getting held up for an agent to check it out when I placed out in the open in the tray. This lets them pick it up & check it out quickly without getting my permission to go through my stuff.

[pietrayday]

A couple small ideas:

* There are little glasses repair kits that can be found at drug stores and at your local S-Mart in the reading glasses and eye care aisle, usually sold in little plastic tubes or envelopes, containing a tiny screwdriver, a couple screws, a couple small rubber o-rings meant to tighten the hinges of glasses, a couple soft pads to cushion the glasses against the nose, and sometimes a little plastic magnifier and/or tweezers; my employer's insurance company once handed out a kit that stored the small items in the handle of the little screw driver: you'll probably want to discard the envelopes/tubes they're stored in, as those can take up a lot of room in a tin, but these kits can probably be looted for useful small items for a survival tin (the screwdriver and magnifier, if included, can be pretty useful), and for those of us who wear glasses, can be real life-savers!

* Your local drug store might sell a little box of pre-threaded sewing needles as a travel sewing kit... the needles and thread take up almost no room in a survival tin for making quick repairs to clothing, and the fact that the needles are pre-threaded is a nice life-saver for those of us whose eyes aren't as sharp and hands aren't as steady as they used to be! I once experienced a fatal wardrobe failure at the office, right in the seat and crotch of my pants, and a little travel sewing kit I kept in the bottom of my laptop bag spared me a lot of discomfort that might otherwise have only been relieved after walking out of the office, a few blocks down a city street to a subway, and then a half-hour's commute on a crowded train... I'll never go to the office without a travel sewing option of some sort again!

* Probably not a bad idea to keep a couple small batteries in a survival tin - those little batteries that power wrist-watches, hearing aids, pacemakers(?), laser pointers, mini LED lights, or whatever: it's one of those things you almost never think about, until you need one!

* There are little key-ring LED flashlights available that are about the size of a coat button, or perhaps a small stack of pocket change: these may not be the best flashlights around, but they're cheap, tiny, and easy to stash into a little survival tin, and absolutely work well enough to help you find your way around in a dark area. I found a package of a half-dozen of these key-rings on sale at one of the big online mail-order places (S-Mart or the big dot-com guys, don't remember which) for less than 2 US$ each, and split them up between a handful of survival tins, first-aid kits, bug-out-bag straps, tool boxes, and so on.

* Fit a small drill bit to one of the smaller-sized plastic "wire nuts" used by electricians to join the wires from e.g. lighting fixtures to household wiring and hot-glue to make it permanent, and you get a quick-and dirty "pin-vice" drill for making small holes! I wouldn't want to put it to any heavy-duty use, and the auger in a multi-tool or army-knife can usually do this sort of thing to some extent, but when you don't have one of these knives/multi-tools or don't have any room for one, this might make a fair substitute for drilling a tiny hole into soft wood or plastic.

* If you don't have room for a full knife of some sort in your kit, a rectangular single-edge razor blade of the sort included in cheap paint-scraper tools works as a quick-and-dirty alternative; a short length of vinyl electrical tape can protect you from the edge of the blade. You can use the notches in the sides of the razor blade to spool on some sturdy sewing thread or light-duty fishing line, and package the blade with some sewing needles or small fishing hooks as the foundation of a little fishing or sewing kit; I've seen these kits packed by soldiers in little sachets made from duct tape before to waterproof, organize, and keep them safe, which seems like a good idea to me!

* For little outdoors emergency kits, I've been tossing small parts into little zip-seal plastic baggies to keep the steel and cotton bits safe from exposure to the elements... I typically pack these little packets with two small fish-hooks, a small bundle of light-duty fishing line (several feet), two pre-threaded sewing needles (black and white thread for the office, grey and brown otherwise), a spare white shirt button from a travel sewing kit, four small safety-pins, two small fishing weights, two fishing swivels, a small foam fishing float/bobber (a Styrofoam "peanut" might substitute on the cheap!), an artificial fishing bait/lure, a couple small zip-ties and twist-ties, a few small tack/nails left over from one of those cheap "Swedish-style" build-your-own-bookshelf kits from S-Mart, a couple small rubber bands, the small contents from an eyeglass repair kit, a small key-ring loop, a small paperclip or two, a toothpick, and a few other little bits: it's a compact little baggie of stuff for fishing or making small repairs, basically.

* I wrap a foot of black vinyl electrical tape around the edges of my survival tins to (hopefully) water-proof the tin, or at least keep it closed, and the tape can be peeled off and re-used for small repairs.

* "Button" compasses take up very little room in a small survival kit, and I got about a dozen of them for a buck or two each from on online Chinese junk dealer (S-Mart or the big dot-com guys). Handy as a backup to your full-sized compass or GPS for outdoor emergency kits: I had so many after buying them to put one in my survival tin, I chucked one in every other kit I've got: my first-aid kit, my home and car tool boxes, my fishing tackle box, and so on, and have a few left over as Christmas "stocking-stuffers", I guess! These are so cheap, I wouldn't want to bet my life on one, but they're also so cheap, light, and small, you get plenty of backups, so I guess it comes out even....

* There are a couple different styles of US military can-openers, P-38 and P-51 I think - one large, one small, made by Shelby, both of which (especially the smaller one) will fit nicely into a survival tin. Traditionally, soldiers wore them with their dog tags, the bigger one is about dog-tag sized, the smaller one almost half the size. I've seen these being sold individually or in sets for a couple bucks, and both types can rip open a can of soup faster and easier than you might imagine! There are lists out there of dozens of uses these can openers can supposedly be put to, besides opening cans and cardboard boxes: use the edge as a screwdriver, for example, and the cutting edge might be used to cut stuff you don't want to dull your knife blade on - string, cord, or whatever.

* Matchbooks are great items for these little kits. You can deconstruct a matchbook pretty easily to save a little space: carefully take out the metal staple that holds the "book' together - you might want to save and reuse it to reassemble the book - and separate the pieces; there's typically the staple, two rows of paper matches, and the cover. You can remove one row of matches and most of the cover, and reassemble the remaining row of matches and the part of the cover that has the striker to make a smaller batch of matches. To save further room, you might even trim off maybe a third of the matches and cover to make a narrower "book" of matches. Seal the deconstructed "book" in a tiny zip-seal baggie to waterproof, and optionally include some cotton swabs thoroughly dabbed in lip balm as kindling (you'll probably want to use the cotton swabs that have paper handles rather than plastic for this purpose.)

* One of those small birthday candles, or two, can be used as kindling for your fire kit, or supply just a little light for a short time. It's not much light, and maybe not the safest way to light an indoor space through a blackout, but a lot better than nothing if you're careful! (There used to be some novelty candles that won't blow out when you make your birthday wish - I don't happen to have any around right now and haven't seen any in a while to try out, but I can't help imagining that one of these might stand up a little better in at least light breezes than your standard birthday candle....)

* As someone else mentioned elsewhere, alcohol swabs/pads can make a nice addition to one of these tins: kindling for the fire kit, disinfectant for small cuts and abrasions, something to clean a surface before adding a stick-on to it, sanitizer to wash your hands or coffee mug or whatever, a cleaning wipe for your glasses.... I usually see these packaged in small first aid kits, or handed out for cleanup at "finger-food" restaurants like barbecue restaurants, included with any stick-on hardware to help ensure a better contact surface, included in MRE "utensil" packages along with the sporks/spoons and napkins and instant coffee or whatever, and so on... you can probably get a bunch of these at a pharmacy, I'm sure diabetics buy them in bulk for cleaning before taking injections.

[danieldean]

Just dropping a comment, Initially watched the video of your grandfathers EDC. It was insightful and heart-warming to see someone take pride in the greatest generation. This video and the quality that has gone into it has earned my sub. Great content. Stay lucky!

[LandmanEDC]

Hey guys. I KNOW aluminum isn't magnetic and Altoids tins are made of steel, hence magnetic. Sorry about getting that wrong - sometimes being live on camera can make you say dumb things. Also - links for stuff here and alternatives are in the description below. Thanks for watching!

[tyler]

Just really got into pocket knives and now that’s turned into everything else. Great content! Super stoked with all the content

[pyrobrogaming]

I found a flashlight recently that I am in love with. It’s the Aurora A3 by RovyVon. It’s a USB C rechargeable with a good 650 lumens on high. Comes with a magnetic pocket clip and a keychain attachment. Highly recommend as even a keychain carry but fits in the tin as well.

[milododds]

You should do a video on your para-cord braid. Great video. I too like the Zebra pens and the mini Leatherman. I subscribed to your channel because I see us being on the same page in terms of how you think about things. I too keep a 1/4” ratchet and bits but I keep them in the nylon sheath for the Leatherman Surge along with a few t-shank blades. The cool thing about Altoid tins is that you can compartmentalize various things, making one into fire starting, first aid, repair/sewing kit, medications, fishing kit, emergency money, gardening seeds, compass and a local map of your city streets.

[winstonbelisle]

Got a mylar shelter in mine, cordage, sm razor, matches. Birthday candles. Pliers. Card showing knts, sm striker. Making fire.All I can't remember all now. Good luck adding.

[garegardner]

Nice set up, nice demonstration also. You reminded me of my youth a bit, over 70 years ago I was doing stuff like this just as a way of life. We were back in the hills of Arkansas not only decades of time ago but also a couple of generations behind the rest of the country. We never heard of altoids but we all carried out grandpas Prince Albert tobacco tins. There was a one bladed knife, a piece of candle, fishing line, sinker and hooks, needle n thread. They were limestone mountains so we had a steel striker for finding spark. A small glass of iodine for major surgery... I cant remember much else although we dressed for the season and normally carried a possibles pouch on belt. Anyhoo, i hope you whipper snappers stay ready for surprises.

[adamclark]

Many years ago, I made a crazy stoner survival kit with an Altoids tin.
I had my glass bowl named Dorthy packed full with weed, a homemade insert that opened up to a second extra shelf. I made the top shelf a play area for these little micro toys that I had (mostly little Mighty Max figurines, and mini toy dinosaurs from the Dollar Tree. I had cut out a bunch of different little pictures from magazines, and glued them all over the inside of the tin.
I had a mini BIC lighter, a Victorinox classic SD, some rolling papers, and a bobby-pin to go with the little bowl hahaha.

[MasterYoist]

I've been doing EDC since the 70s, before EDC was even a concept.
My Altoids case for the past 7 years has:
Leatherman Style PS (Pliers, not scissors)
Leatherman Micra
Eyeglass screwdriver and micro fiber cloth (I also wear glasses)
A credit Card multi tool with a protractor because I just retired as a math teacher
Credit Card Tool that I made that lets me make perfect 30-60-90 Triangles, 45-45-90 Triangles, and 3-4-5 triangles (Like I mentioned - math teacher)
Nail clippers
Sewing awl that I made (I show this on a video I posted a year ago)
15 yards of heavy-duty thread for sewing leather (I've fixed lots shoes when out on walks)
Two Ranger Bands, and
a $20 Bill because you just never know.

I carry all of this on my belt in a custom leather case that I made.
It is all so light that I often forget that I have it with me.

Nice video.

We threw our Gerber Dime in the trash where it belongs.

[Nitrofox]

For a pen, I recommend a fisher space pen refill. Without a pen body it fits (Although barely!), it can write in a lot of surfaces, upside down, in extreme temps and underwater. Also, refills are pretty inexpensive for the quality

[lf]

One thing you may consider is putting the band aid on top. It may not look as clean and neat when opened, but when you consider that your cut will be dripping blood everywhere, it makes sense that you'd want to be able to grab it as quickly as possible as opposed to having to dump everything out to get to it.