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.
How to make a Coursolle sujet knife
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Credit: le couteau.info.com
Matthieu Herrero made a re-edition of the primitive form.
Credit: Matthieu Herrero
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.
The laguiole is probably the most famous French knife and its history and origin are full of legends and inaccuracies.
I will try here to be as accurate and factual as possible.
As almost every French regional knife, the laguiole gets its name from the eponym city, in the Aubrac region.
The first cutlers registered in Laguiole arrived in the first part of the Nineteenth century.
At the time, it was small workshops where all the steps were made by a single cutler.
Straight Laguiole
The very first laguiole, called straight laguiole, was fairly similar to the other knives of the area like the Yssingeaux, Issoire or even Saint Martin, with a straight handle ending in a crow beak and a drop point blade, called Bourbon blade.
YssingeauxVintage Saint MartinVintage straight laguiole
It is somewhere between 1850 and 1860 that the laguiole in its modern form was invented by Pierre-Jean Calmels.
He replaced the Bourbon blade by a Yatagan blade (see my history of the Yatagan knife) and made a handle with the curve we know today.
Yatagan knife
Both straight and modern laguioles co-existed until early in the Twentieth century.
Modern interpretation of a straight laguiole by Arto
Towards the end of the Nineteenth century, part of the production was transferred to Thiers, the industrial hub, like a lot of other regional knives.
Vintage laguile by Poyet Sivet circa 1900
The very first decorated laguioles appear at the same time with a decorated mouche (top end of the spring) and file work on the spring.
At the 1900 Paris Exposition, Pagès and Calmels, both great names in the laguiole knives, received a gold medal for their knives.
Vintage laguiole by Pages
At the beginning of the Twentieth century, and the trend for gentlemen to carry a pocketknife, the decor of the knives get more refined with ivory handles in the shape of a pigeon wing, butterfly, rattlesnake tail or even mythical or historical figures like Napoleon.
Laguiole “pigeon wing”
The mouche sees also various shapes, including the famous bee.
With a lot or workers mobilized and large orders from the Army to Thiers, the first world war is the beginning of the decline of knife making in Laguiole, most of the production being made in Thiers.
Vintage Laguiole by Genes David in Thiers
The last Laguiole forge closed around 1950
Mid 1980’s was restarted a knifemaking activity in the city of Laguiole.
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 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.
