PARKING AND TABLE KNIFE - MEDIUM - NONTRON
Versatile, table or paring knife, handy and precise, 10cm blade in T5MOS stainless steel, 10cm round handle in pyro-engraved boxwood.
The revival of the oldest French knife, the mythical knife marked with the 3-point V, a mysterious symbol whose origin no one knows anymore..!
A tool for all uses, an indispensable attribute of farmers, a companion to every meal, the Nontron has spanned the ages since the 15th century.
Handcrafted, each knife is entirely made by the same craftsman. Each piece is unique. The artisanal company currently has around twenty cutlers, it is labeled Living Heritage Company.
La Coutellerie Nontronnaise, heir to an immemorial expertise, is a key part of the French landscape of regional knives. A Nontron represents our territory and our craftsmanship.
The Nontron knife is considered an ancestor and inspires numerous legends. This imagery, dating back to the dawn of time, relies as much on its distinctive shapes as on its trademark pyrographic symbol.
Its history is so long that it is difficult to date its birth. However, experts agree that the Nontron knife is the oldest knife in France and that its origin dates back at least to the 15th century.
Writings and excavations indicate that long before the Middle Ages, forging was common in this French region. Guillaume de la Villeneuve alluded to "Pierregord knives" at the beginning of the 13th century.
Subsequently, blacksmiths were praised for their skills in poems and songs. Some historians claim that King Charles VII (1403-1461), called "the Victorious" by Joan of Arc, had his sword made in Nontron.
In the 18th century, Nontron had thirty-five cutlers. By 1928, only one company remained: La Coutellerie Nontronnaise. On June 21, 2000, a new workshop designed by Luc-Arsène Henry opened its doors.
La Coutellerie Nontronnaise remains the only one to perpetuate this age-old tradition. Each piece, made from start to finish by the same cutler, is unique. From the boxwood branch (a minimum of 4 years of on-site drying) to the finished knife, it takes 40 manufacturing steps: the main ones being sawing, grooving the blank, fitting the iron bolster and nail, installing the rotating brass or nickel silver ferrule, applying the stamp, grinding the back, sanding and then polishing the handle, and sharpening the forged blade (since 1992, all blades have been produced by Forge de Laguiole).
One operation then remains: pyrography. These patterns, whose origin and meaning are still unknown, consist of 6 "flies": a kind of inverted V framed by 3 dots and 4 rows of small dots.
Defending and buying a Nontron means taking part in a process that rejects the loss of skills, and participating in the demonstration that a product made entirely by hand in France can still exist.