Marco Tovar was around 9 years old at a Modesto swap meet when he first came across a switchblade comb. He had never seen anything like it.
With the press of a button, a fine-tooth plastic comb snapped out. It was so cool to him as a kid in the 1980s.
“The fact that you could hit a button — and just hwa-chsh,” Tovar said, imitating the crisp snap of the comb locking in place. “That was really intriguing to a lot of kids growing up.”…