As often with French regional knives, the Issoire knife gets its name from a city name, probably because it was originally made or sold in this city.
Its origin is unknown, but there is trace of an order for knives in the “Issoire style” in 1888.
The knife is typical of the knives originating from Auvergne, like the Yssingeaux or straight Laguiole.
It is a slipjoint, with a drop point blade, the point falling very low, giving it almost a wharncliffe shape. It has a swedge on one side, across around a third of the blade.
The handle usually goes thinner towards the bottom, with a long bolster on top and often, but not always, a second bolster at the bottom. The bottom is always in a “crow beak” shape when the top one is often, especially for the older models, in a diamond shape.
The sides are usually made of bone or ivory with large rivets and can be decorated with ink arabesques or dotted with pins.
The spring ends with a long “mouche” on top, usually in a “man’s head” shape (when it is a bee on modern laguioles for example); and has often a lanyard hole on the other end.
This knife was also very popular with the wine merchants from center France and then equipped with a very strong awl, often with a pyramidal point, used to open the wine barrels bungs.
A very elegant tool with some modern interpretations.
The barrel knife (tonneau in French) gets its name from the shape of the handle, pretty round, that reminds the shape of a barrel.
Its origin is in the eighteenth century, from West Center France.
It is the typical worker’s knife. When farmers were hiring workers, they were giving them this knife as a sign of goodwill and good relationship.
It’s a simple knife, with a main blade in the sheepsfoot style and large bolsters on each side, but it was often on a multiblade style with a coping blade, an awl, a saw and sometimes a corkscrew.
It is one of the oldest multiblade.
The handle can be made of wood, horn or ivorine, a synthetic polymer that mimics ivory.
Barrel knife with an ivorine handle
Today, some modern versions are still made, often in carbon steel
The Alpin knife, also known as the Savoyard, Mountaineer, alpinist or even Saint-Bernard was born towards the end of the nineteenth century.
Its exact origin is unknown but we can find a similar model in the other side of the Alps in Italy.
The first Alpin brand was registered by Rivière-Caburol in 1905.
It was the main competitor of the famous Opinel, born in the same region and at the same time.
Even Opinel made its own version at some point
The knife is simple. A Yatagan blade with a half-stop, a spring for the slipjoint system and the handle, that can be with or without bolsters, is made of 2 wooden side.
The first ones were using larch wood, but other woods appeared when all the production was finally transferred to Thiers, like other regional knives.
We also saw cattle horn and even acrylic in some cheaper models.
Coming from Thiers, its diffusion was wider than just the Alps and it was even sold in North-Africa.
The star was for the North African market
The Alpin knife still has modern interpretations and is still a very simple and appreciated knife.
The Colonial knife was born in 1873 from specifications from the French war ministry. It was an attempt to provide a utility knife to the troops.
It was the very first folding knife officially adopted by the French armed forces.
French colonial troops
The term “colonial” comes from the fact that it was first adopted by the colonial troops, before the Navy.
The description was pretty simple:
– A 9cm (3.55in) blade in the sheepfoot style for a total length of 20.5cm (8in) when open
– A steel spring for the slip joint mechanism, with a hole at the bottom to fix a lanyard.
– 2 wooden sides riveted to the steel liners.
The pins were often mounted on rosettes, to avoid breaking the handle.
The description added a rounded tip blade in 1939, the last year of the knife being distributed to the troops.
Late example with rounded tip. Each dent on the handle represents a month of service.
The knife is like a sailor knife, with its typical sheepfoot blade, supposedly to avoid stabbing in case of a fight between two soldiers.
Knife belonging to a soldier form the Marine artillery, service number H.1711
Pradel-Chomette was the first and most prolific manufacturer, but many others provided the knife.
Its official distribution to the troops stopped in 1939, but the type was simple, cheap, sturdy and popular and its fabrication lasted until the late 1960’s for the civilian market.
A modern re-edition by C. Esteves
A good example of a simple yet sturdy sailor knife!
The Yatagan knife gets its name from the Yataghan, or yatağan, a short sword in use in the Ottoman Empire until the late nineteenth century.
A Yataghan short sword
The blade is inspired by the sword blade.
That shape was probably bring back by the Napoleonic troops after their Egyptian campaign and the “orientalism” trend of the nineteenth century made the type popular.
The blade shape was later used to give the Laguiole knife its actual form.
It is a simple slipjoint, with its characteristic clip point blade, usually with a half-stop, a slightly arched handle and sides usually made of cattle horn.
The type was mainly used in the South-west of France.
The Basque Yatagan
Among all those South-West users were some tobacco growers who used their Yatagan to cut-off damaged or dirty tobacco leaves. But the tobacco plants produce a thick sap that was covering the knife’s handle, making it slippery.
A seller from Bergerac had the idea to add 10 protruding rivets to the handle to create some sort of grip.
That created the so-called Basque Yatagan, sometimes called only Basque knife.
Some of today’s interpretations of the knife keep those 10 rivets, but letting it flush with the handle, to make it more comfortable.
The city of Thiers finds its origin in the medieval age and can claim six centuries of cutlery tradition.
The legend says that the Crusaders bring back the secret of steel but the history of knife making can be dated back to the fifteenth century as tax registers mention thirty knife makers in the city that will turn to be 200 in the sixteenth century.
Oddly enough, the city didn’t have real assets to become the capital of knife making, there is no iron ore for the blades or sandstone to make grinding wheels, but there is the Durolle, the torrent that will provide enough energy for the cutlery machines, and the obstinacy and hard work of people living on a rocky, steep and hard territory, working in the fields in summer and making blades in winter.
Long before Henry Ford, it is in the fifteenth Century that the division of labor started in Thiers with people specialized in the various steps of knife making, to the final assembly. It was not anymore a single cutler that was making the entire knife.
The working conditions were really hard. The cutlers shaping the blades on the grinding wheels were called the “yellow bellies”, because, in the unique Thiers style, they were grinding the blades laying over the wheel, with a dog on their legs to keep them warm.
They were working down in the valley, next to the water that was used to provide the power.
On top of the cold and humidity, the noise of the machines is loud and, if the grinding wheel explodes, the cutler is projected to the ceiling, with a little chance of survival.
That part of the valley is called “Hell” (L’enfer in French), one of the buildings was even called like that.
L’enfer (Hell)
For the other specialties it is not more comfortable, the presses and hammering machines are dangerous and the temperature in the forge can reach 120F.
But that specialization and efficiency made that knife makers and merchants in various French regions were ordering knives to Thiers.
For instance, the cutlers from the village of Laguiole, in Aveyron, had to order knives in Thiers, as they were not able to keep up with the demand. Those knives were originally called “Laguiole style” before being definitively called Laguiole when all the production was finally done in Thiers.
Laguiole knife
The same story happened to different regions and cities, this is why most of the French knives have the name of a city or a region like Yssingeaux, Issoire, Alpin, Montpellier, Rouennais etc.
Yssingeaux
Rouennais
Yatagan
Saint-Martin
Thiers even produced some “Spanish” navajas.
When the city was, and is still today, making the knives of all the different French regions, it never had its own style of knife. It was corrected rather late, in 1994, when “Le Thiers” was created. It will be the object of a later article.
Le Thiers
Today electricity definitely replaced all the water powered machines and Thiers and its surroundings is still making between 70% and 80% of the French bladed tools, earning its status of French knife making capital, with its museum and “Coutellia”, the annual international blade show.
The “palm” ratchet-lock folding knife gets its name from the locking system on the back of the handle that has the shape of a palm leave (palme in French).
The system is actually inspired from the Spanish Navaja that gained, in the late 18th century, a locking style blade with a back spring and a metal pull ring to release the lock. These knives were called Navaja de Muelles (Spring Knifes). The ring was eventually discarded in favor of a lever, still present in today’s navajas.
Navaja de muelles
This made that, until early in the 20th Century, the palm knives were sometimes called navaja in France. Those Spanish navajas were considered fighting knives, sometimes even prohibited, it is important to recall that for the rest of our story.
The knife is in fact quite different from a navaja. It is a plain handle, in wood or horn, almost like a Capucin, with an external spring covering the back of the handle, including the ratchet-lock.
It is a simple, easy to produce, yet efficient locking system. The blade is often in a yatagan style.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, this type of knife was popular, considered as a hunting knife, but in the pocket of many workers and farmers.
Extract from the Manufrance catalog showing the hunters knives
When WW1 broke out in Europe, it completely changed the classic warfare and the trench battle style called for different tactics and equipment. Storming the enemy trench with a long rifle fitted with a long bayonet was not always convenient and feedback from the front line requested a knife for hand-to-hand combat.
The soldier equipment did not include a knife and the war ministry sent delegates to manufactures, mainly in Thiers, to find a suitable equipment.
The palm knife was selected, all the stocks were requisitioned and large orders placed. So much that even the cutleries from Nontron, specialized in ferrule (ring lock) knives, started to produce palm knives.
Later Nontron form the 30’s
In September 1915, more than 46,000 of those locking knives have been delivered.
6.35mm and palm knife
However, and despite its fierce reputation in the navaja form as fighting knife, it was not adapted to the trench combat. The blade was a bit thin and the single pin to fix it made the ensemble too weak. Moreover, the handle was sleek and the knife did not have a cross-guard, making the thrust hits dangerous, especially with a handle covered in mud or blood.
Eventually, the Army ordered simple butcher knives…
Trench butcher knife with improvised sheath
Before developing specific designs.
Trench dagger or “trench nail”
The type was still popular until the mid 20th Century, before being replaced by lockbacks, liner-locks etc.
However, among others, the Nontron cutlery is still producing a knife remnant of those made by its ancestors, quite different from its traditional product line.
Mongin, with its fabulous knives, is faithful to that system, in the Nogent tradition, even removing the ratchet lock to make it like a classic slip joint.
Despite the poor capabilities as a fighting knife, they remain nice and great utility knives with a genuine long history
The story of the Douk-Douk started more than 90 years ago, in 1929, when Gaspard Cognet, that everybody called “Gaston”, decided to target the Melanesian market with a new folding knife.
At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Thiers was exporting its knives all over the world, especially in the vast French colonial empire. The MC Cognet was one of the biggest manufactures, and targeting the French islands in the Pacific Ocean seemed a good plan.
The knife was designed to be inexpensive and sturdy.
It is made of 6 parts, a carbon steel blade, a ferro-blackened folded sheet-metal handle, a strong spring nested inside the handle, a bail at the back and 2 rivets to assemble it all… That’s it.
Gaston was looking for a commercial catch for his knife. This was long before Google and Wikipedia and it is in an illustrated dictionary that he found the picture of a local divinity, the Douk-Douk.
The Duk-Duk (or Douk-Douk), sometimes called the god of chaos and doom, is an important figure in the Melanesian culture. The costume is made of a conical hat, a cylindrical mask made of bark, and palm tree leaves down to the knees. He goes screaming in the village, scaring people off, until he reaches the hut of the person suspected of a crime to deliver the punishment. Nobody dares going against him, as death would struck anyone who would raise his hand against the Duk-Duk.
The legend also gives him the power of healing. In this little character, looking like a mix between a pineapple and a fir, Gaston found his symbol. It was patented in 1930.
To complete his design, he opted for a Turkish clip / Scimitar style blade decorated with an electrochemical etching figuring arabesques, to give it a more exotic look.
The Melanesian market was a disaster and the stocks were redirected to other markets in the colonial empire. It finally met success in the French colonies of North Africa where people liked its low price and high quality blade, easy to sharpen, that was even sometimes used as a razor. From there it migrated to sub-Saharan Africa and even arrived in pygmy tribes.
It was carried by the French Foreign Legion and other Colonial troops and reached, with troops reassignment, the middle-east through Lebanon, and South-East Asia through Indochina. In 1939 it became “the national pocket knife” of Algeria.
Vintage Douk-Douk from before 1939
Different variants were created, with different blade shapes: clip point, drop-point or sheep-foot. Some models disappeared like “Le Lion”, “Le Saharien” or “Ed Dib”, all for the North African market. Some are still around like the “Tiki”, another attempt for the Polynesian market, or the “Baraka”, with its nickel-plated handle.
It was so famous (and easy to make) that it also had countless copies.
A copy called Kama
The Douk-Douk gained its infamous killer reputation during the Algerian independence war. Largely available, with a sharp blade and flat enough to be easily concealed it was the perfect weapon. Once open, you can just hammer the two ears at the base of the blade to change it into a fierce fixed blade, ready to stab any private or officer who would dare to enter the Casbah.
It was so dangerous that the DST (French counter-intelligence) considered it as military equipment, banned its exportation to Algeria and seized the existing stocks. Those seized knives were then given to the troops as a utility knife.
In 1962, at the Algerian independence, the repatriated troops and civilians bring back the Douk-Douk to France, where it was unknown, and built up its reputation.
Today the knife is still produced using almost the same process and tools. Only concession to modernity, some models are fitted with a stainless steel blade, but the most appreciated remains the historical carbon steel.
The Capuchin monks (Capucin in French) gave their name to a coffee in Italy, the famous cappuccino, and to a knife in France! Not that it was used by the monks, but because the shape of the tip of the handle looks like the hood of the monks’ robe.
Cognet even made few of these knives figuring the actual face
It is one of the oldest knife styles and one that almost did not change since the medieval age.
It is in the category of the primitive knives or friction folders, and more specifically a “2 clous”, or 2 pins. The first friction folders were of a piedmontese style, like the famous higonokami for example, but the lever at the end of the knife is protruding when closed and can be uncomfortable or even dangerous when the knife is in the pocket.
Classic piedmontese style knife and Japanese Higonokami
The solution came with the “2 clous” where one pin is the blade axle and where the end of the blade rests on a second pin, making for a sleeker shape once folded.
The design cannot be simpler. The handle was originally in wood, with just a saw kerf to fold the blade and that specific Capuchin hood at the end to be able to grab the blade, as it does not have a nail nick.
Capucin by Darat from the 19th Century
Later the handle was made in a horn tip, from a ram or a bovine.
Capucin by Jouret in a blond horn
The blade has a “sage leaf” shape, very wide and thick, designed for heavy work.
The axle is often mounted on a rosette, to avoid braking the handle.
If the handle looses its tightness and the blade opens too easily, which can be dangerous in the pocket, there are 2 different techniques: hammering the pin or, for a wooden handle, dipping the handle in water and let the wood swell a little.
Those knives were very popular with the shepherds of the South-West France, in the Pyreneans. Some were even assembling the knives themselves. They were buying a blade, often sub-par, from a knife maker, selecting a horn and shape it and then simply installing the blade.
A classic piece, still popular today with some interesting modern interpretations.
Everything started at the beginning of the 19th century when Victor-Amédée Opinel decided to install a forge in the little town of Gevoudaz, Savoie, in the French Alps.
He is an edge-tool maker and makes nails, axes, plow blades and various types of blades thanks to the Arvan, the rapid stream running there and that provides the energy for the forge tools.
Joseph Opinel, Victor-Amédée’s grandson, continues in the family business with his father but he has the idea to make folding knives for the local farmers and workers.
The city of Thiers was already very famous for its knives at the time and Joseph decided to go there and learn about knife making.
Some 130 years ago, in 1890, and against his father’s will, Joseph Opinel creates his first folding knife, with a wooden handle that would “fit perfectly in hand” and a steel blade “efficient, precise and elegant”. The famous folding knife was born.
One of the technical issue was the handle, cutting the handle in half all the way to the end would have make it weak, Joseph created a circular saw that was removing just enough material.
In 1896, 3 workers work in the factory and make 60 knives per day.
In 1897 Joseph creates the range of Opinel from No1 to No13. The No1 is used to clean the smoking pipe, the No13 is used to cut large pieces of meat, but the most famous, until today, are the No7 and No8
Each knife has a wood handle made of beechwood or cherrywood and a carbon steel blade in the yatagán style (a slight clip-point).
The crowned hand was stamped on the blades from the first models, as, since King Charles IX, every master knife maker had to put his mark as a guarantee of origin and quality. The three fingers representing the relics of Saint Jean-Baptiste that are part of the coat of arms of the city of Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne. The crown was a reference to the duchy of Savoy that was independent from France until 1860.
In 1901, Joseph creates the first Opinel factory, nearby his first workshop and install the 1st machine to manufacture the handles. 15 cutlers are working at the factory.
Joseph Opinel
In 1911, Opinel receives the gold medal at the Alpine International Show in Turin, The first international recognition for the pocketknife.
In 1915, Joseph moves the factory to a new facility in Cognin, next to Chambery and close to roads and railroads, the town of Gevoudaz didn’t even have a paved way.
Joseph relied on the train engineers to sell his products throughout France, taking advantage of the Railroads’ strong territorial coverage.
In 1939, the Opinel No1 and No11 are discontinued.
In 1955, Marcel, Joseph’s son, invents the ring lock, called virobloc, allowing to lock the blade open. This locking ring will be modified again a bit before 2000 to lock the blade closed.
In 1973, the factory moves again, to Chambery
In 1985 is another recognition for the Opinel. It is nominated by the London Arts and Science Museum as one of the 100 best designs of the world, along with the Porsche 911 or the Rolex watch.
In 1986 are introduced Stainless steel blades.
In 2006, the Opinel is nominated by Phaidon Design classic as part of the 999 most perfect designs.
An Opinel is made of only 5 parts
The brand is still alive because it has always been heavily protected with patents on the name, the logo, the virobloc system… This protected it from the Chinese and Pakistani’s competition that hit the industry pretty hard, starting in the 80’s. The famous Laguiole, that was lacking those kind of protection, was heavily copied.
Copy by Pradel
Copy by Fleur de Savoie
Opinel is now a common noun in the French dictionary, Pablo Picasso used it to sculpt, the explorer Jean-Louis Etienne and navigators Eric Tabarly and Ellen McArthur took it in their adventures and the famous chef Paul Bocuse always kept it in his pocket.
Paul Bocuse was selling Opinels at his name in his restaurant.
Today, 130 years after the first design, the Opinel is still faithful to its legacy and really appreciated for its quality, ruggedness, style… and cheap price.
