A credit-card-sized metal card arrived full of snap-out tools, what are they all for?

That is a survival or fishing tool card, a flat stamped sheet where each tool is held in place by small tabs and snapped out when needed.

The usual contents, and what they are:

• Fish hooks in a couple of sizes, sometimes barbed.
• A lure or spinner blade, often shiny and shaped to flash in water.
• Arrow or spear points, meant to be lashed to a shaft.
• A small saw edge along one side of the card.
• An awl or reamer for making holes.
• A snare or wire eyelet, and often a sewing needle with an eye.
• A small blade or scraper, and sometimes an edge for striking a ferrocerium rod.

The key thing to understand about the format: the tools do not go back. Once snapped out they stay out, and there is no way to reattach them. It is a one-way object designed to be carried flat in a wallet and used once in an emergency.

Worth checking two practical things before you pass it on.

The steel. Cheap cards are made of mild steel that rusts quickly in a wallet and holds no edge. Better ones are stainless. A magnet tells you little, but a drop of water left on it overnight tells you a lot.

Local rules. Some places have restrictions on carrying items with blades, and a card with a stamped blade in a wallet can technically fall under them. Worth a quick check for wherever your nephew lives before it goes into a pocket rather than a drawer.

On whether to give it to a fourteen-year-old, since that was the actual question: the honest answer is that it depends heavily on the specific card and on the child.

The considerations:

• Some of the pieces are sharp, and the edges after snapping out are rough and unfinished. Cheap examples in particular have burrs that need filing.
• Fish hooks are hooks. The barb is the part that makes a small injury into a trip to a clinic.
• It is not a practical tool. The steel in a stamped card is thin and soft compared with any real knife or hook, and it will not perform well for actual fishing.

So as a genuine piece of equipment it is fairly poor. As a novelty object that prompts an interest in the outdoors, it is fine for a mature fourteen-year-old, ideally handed over alongside a conversation and a file for the burrs.

If you want a gift that actually gets used, a decent folding knife or a small real fishing kit would serve better at similar cost.

One thing these are genuinely good at, and it is worth mentioning because it is not obvious: they are a decent backup rather than a primary kit.

Flat, nearly weightless, sits permanently in a wallet or a pack lid and is forgotten about. Anyone who fishes or hikes already carries better versions of every tool on it, but the better versions are in the bag they left behind, and this one is in their pocket.

That is the category it belongs to: redundant equipment you never intend to use.