GRAND DUC LOCKING FERRULE KNIFE - N°25 - NONTRON
Folding knife, Grand-Duc model, creation of the designers Romain Diroux and Manon Leblanc, founders of Studio Monsieur.
Blade in unalterable T12 steel, brass safety ferrule, boxwood handle with feather patterns entirely hand-pyrograved. Each piece is unique.
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.
Even today, the 40 stages of manufacturing remain the same. Handcrafted, each knife is entirely made by the same craftsman.
The artisanal company currently has around twenty cutlers, it is labeled Living Heritage Company.
Blade length: 9 cm
Handle length: 12 cm
Weight: 75g
La Coutellerie Nontronnaise, heir to an immemorial expertise, is a staple in 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 unique shapes as on its distinctive pyrography mark.
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 to at least 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 centuries-old tradition. Each piece, made from start to finish by the same cutler, is unique. From the boxwood branch (dried on-site for a minimum of 4 years) to the finished knife, it takes 40 manufacturing steps: the main ones being sawing, grooving the blank, fitting the iron ferrule and nail, installing the rotating brass or nickel-silver ferrule, stamping, 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).
Then one operation remains: pyrography. These patterns, whose origin and meaning are still unknown, consist of 6 "flies": a sort of inverted V framed by 3 dots and 4 rows of small dots.
Defending and buying a Nontron means participating in a process that refuses the loss of skills, and helping demonstrate that a product made entirely by hand in France can still exist.