All about French knives
The Gouttière or Gutter, is originally from Burgundy.
It’s essentially an offspring of the Langres and gets its name from the shape of its bolster.
The grooved bolster reminds of a rain gutter, or gouttière in French.
It has a long and slender handle and pretty thin sheepsfoot handle.
It’s a typical utilitarian knife.
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The Eustache was first made in 1789, year of the French revolution, by Eustache Benoit, a cutler from Saint Etienne.
It’s a friction folder, the slipjoints were not very common yet. The blade has no locking system, only the tighness of the pivot keeps it open.
It has a typical and very pronounced clip point blade.
The handle is made of a single piece of wood (like an Opinel or a Montpellier) with a long metallic sleeve, sort of bolster, covering around 2/3 of the handle.
The end of the handle has the shape of a boot, a bit like a jambette knife, to accommodate the tip once folded.
The cheapest versions had the wood blackened in a hot mold.
The knife is rather large per today’s standard and was popular at the time.
It is mentioned in the chronicles “The Mysteries of Paris” by Eugene Sue in 1842. The name even became a generic term for a knife in French slang.
I fell into oblivion with the advent of the slipjoints by the mid Nineteenth century but was revived for the celebrations of the 200 years of the French revolution.
Today, Thiers Issard is using some old stock and is making a re-edition true to the original shape and size with a boxwood handle and a sleeve engraved with a French revolution theme.
A real piece of history, testament of what was a folding knife some 235 years ago!
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The “forced notch” mechanism is an evolution of the traditional slipjoint system, and often found on French knives such as Laguioles, Saint-Martin or Thiers for instance.
It’s somewhere between a classic flat slipjoint and a lockback.
The blade has a little notch where a part of the backspring comes to lock. Unlike a lockback, it’s rounded and will slip when pushing on the blade to fold the knife. It’s an added safety to prevent the knife from closing involuntarily.
The lock must be “broken” before the blade can be folded slowly in the handle.
Leon Coursolle, born 1877, was an intinerant merchant and ended up marrying the daughter of one of his vendors, a cutler named Fedit who was making novelty knives with bone sides and some simple scrimshaw.
Disappointed by his father in law’s production, he devised a new type of pocketknife, inspired by German production in Solingen.
Germans were the precursors of novelty knives with brass or aluminum handle by the end of the 18th century, notably owned by the carriers. Some were also made in France in early 19th century (see the history of the Napoleon knife) https://knives-of-france-blog.com/napoleon-knife/.
The handle of the knife, traditionally made of a liner and a cover (wood, horn, bone etc.) would be replaced by a single piece of brass, saving material and time for the assembly.
But what the customer was losing in refinement and aesthetics, Leon was making it up by putting a nice stamp on the brass.
Leon met a minter from the National Mint that made him the first matrix for his handles. The Coursolle sujet knife was born and the first one made in 1902.
The knife quickly became famous and sometimes called “yellow knife” for the color of the handle.
Leon trademarked first a wrench in 1905, then adjustable wrenches in 1926.
More recently Jean-Marc Couperier, now owner of the Coursolle cutlery, added his own vision of the Laguiole and Thiers knives with, obviously, brass handles.
The side are first cut from a sheet of brass then power hammered in the dies where the embossing appears, some of the classics are the hunter, fisherman, spinner, venus etc.
The blade is classically made in carbon steel XC75, drop forged and water quenched. Some models are now available in stainless steel.
The knives come, since the beginning, in 4 sizes: 105mm, 90mm, 80mm and 70mm and in a variety of versions from a single blade to a 6 blades competing with the famous SAK. Each version has a number, the one attributed by Leon Coursolle a century ago.
The knives are then assembled using steel rivets, everything is still made like a 100 years ago, all by hand.
The only concession to modernity: a foot operated cutter is used to cut the rivets and the rivet heads are rounded by a power hammer.
Each brass side receives a clear coating.
Each piece is then inspected by the senior cutler to check the action and fix some defects (re-align the blade to seat in the handle once folded, adjustment of the kick to correct a proud tip etc.)
The production is true to the tradition and original manufacturing process, a new Coursolle is almost a NOS piece.
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The Pradel knife is one of the few French knives that doesn’t have a city for name.
It gets its name from its inventor: Etienne Pradel, who created the type in 1867.
It is in fact inspired by English knives, from Sheffield, hence the large kick on the blade.
The success wasn’t great around Thiers where it was manufactured but it finally found interest in Normandy and Brittany with farmers and fishermen, especially those going on fishing campaigns around Newfoundland.
It was so popular that the pattern originally called “English style” finally adopted the name of its creator and that other manufacturers used the Pradel name for theirs, generating countless lawsuits.
The knife is simple, a spear blade, generally with a half-stop and a slightly trapezoidal, flat, handle with usually black horn covers and 4, 5 or 6 pins for extra sturdiness and a short bolster on top.
It was later developed in a multiblade version and countless sizes.
A simple worker’s knife, still popular today.
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Sauvagnat-Grimaud was a cutlery in Thiers, created in 1860, and that no longer exist.
Eric Keller, from Thiers-Issard, came across an old stock of Sauvagnat-Grimaud’s blades from the 1930’s.
The history behind those blades is a bit unclear, but they are what remains of a big production run.
The blades still bear the SG mark with the cuirassier helmet, that represents the helmet of the Napoleonic imperial guard’s cuirassier cavalry.
The blades were made of forged Holtzer cast carbon steel, a steel really famous back in the days to make straight blade razors for example.
The original design of the handle is unknown, and Eric created a design matching what it could have been at the time, with an easy pull notch since the blades don’t have a nail nick.
He made 2 different patterns:
A classic 2 pins friction folder with a plain full handle.
And a slipjoint shadow pattern with a fileworked backspring.
On the 2 patterns, the blade is riveted using NOS rosettes to give an authentic feel.
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The Langres knife gets its name from the eponym city, Langres, in eastern France.
Its origin can be dated to the end of the 16th century, but since 1900 in its current form.
It can be considered as the French equivalent of the boy’s knife with its rather small size and sheepsfoot style blade, it was traditionally given to boys for their religious confirmation, around 12/14 yo, which marked the end of childhood.
It’s a simple slipjoint, with traditionally a round handle with a single but strong top bolster and a sheepsfoot blade.
The handle can be of various materials: horn, synthetic or wood.
The size can vary, but it’s rather small
A utilitarian knife, easy to slip in the pocket.
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This strong knife gets its name from a village in the Allier region of France.
With its wide sheepsfoot blade, it was appreciated by farm workers and market gardeners.
As often with those traditional knives, the blade doesn’t have a kick and the tip rests on the spring. With that extremely wide blade, it allows for extensive sharpening without any proud tip issue.
The handle can be in horn or wood with a single bolster on top and the typical rounded end.
A tough knife made for heavy work
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The Saint Martin is part of the central France style of knife, along with the Issoire, Yssingeaux or Laguiole.
The big difference is that this knife was not popular among the rural people but popular with the clergy.
Monks and priests liked its fineness to sharpen geese feathers and make quill pens.
The knife follows the center France style with a bourbon blade, end of the handle in form of a crow beak and a smooth mouche and the end of the back spring.
The handle often has top and bottom bolsters
An elegant knife, thin and easy to handle.
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As the majority of French Regional knives, the Aurillac gets its name from a city, in Auvergne, central France.
It is one of the classical knives from central France with their typical bourbon blade, like the Yssingeaux, Saint-Martin or Issoire.
But it was not always like we know it today.
By the middle of the 19th century, it was already famous and made by various knife makers, in Aurillac.
When it already had the classic bourbon blade, the handle was very different with usually a rather flat handle and 3 (yes, 3) bolsters, one on each side and one in the middle, with various decors.
Matthieu Herrero made a re-edition of the primitive form.
It’s by the end of the 19th century that the modern form appeared, with the “fat” handle, traditionally made of horn or wood.
The general form remains the same and we find the same recess at the end of the handle, used as some sort of easy pull.
It is a peasant knife, made for hard work with a strong bolster on top.
The knife felt into oblivion for a while before being relaunched in 1990. Today, like most of regional knives, the production is made in Thiers.
An elegant and strong knife, really comfortable, both in the hand or in the pocket.
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Extremely interesting knife, beautiful design. If you’re only slicing and the pivot is nice and tight I find that friction…