Vintage German 12″ Forged Carbon Steel Slicing Knife ~1960’s

Drop forged and hand ground (and hand ground again) German slicer from approximately the 1960’s (or early 70’s) judging from the non-forged straight tang and brass rivets but with solid wood handle scales. Hand ground carbon steel knives like this largely ended in the mid 1970’s in Solingen Germany being supplanted by stainless steel and less hand grinding. As the older skilled workers retired and the cost of labor rose hand grinding on carbon steel was no longer the norm in Solingen. Stainless steel became very popular and the bigger names in Solingen began to produce larger quantities of knives with less hand work. 

While it’s certainly not the last of its kind and forged carbon steel is still done in Solingen, this knife represents the last of the era of carbon steel and hand grinding as a mainstay of production. Look for the shape of the bolsters (narrow and tapering) and well as the slight curve on the face of the blade. 

This knife will work great for large ingredients like melons, large batches of veggies or as a slicer for boneless meat. Large chef knives like this were often used to prepare a roulade; a thin sheet of meat cut from a larger tougher section that was rolled up and trussed with different ingredients, there are old French or German recipies, see our book Sharp to see chef Chris Kronner’s take on this classic.

This knife has been re-ground and thinned behind the edge on a large 3 foot diameter Japanese water stone wheel (kaiten mizu toishi) and then resurfaced with a medium fine finish, our take on an old style grinding and finishing technique. While the particular wheel used to refurbish this knife is typically used in Japanese knife making it is very similar to the old grinding wheels used to shape European and American hand ground cutlery. A convex face to a blade greatly increases a knife’s performance as there is less sticking as there is on a flat face and the blade does not get thick behind the edge nearly as fast as with a flat faced blade. Being that we are often working with old blades that need re-shaping and might have been rusted expect some minor imperfections, we try to give a fresh start to our re-ground blades with an eye towards their original grind style and keeping as much metal is needed on a blade when ever possible. Check out Bernal Cutlery co founder Josh Donald’s book Sharp to see these wheels in use and more about their history in Europe and Japan.