New Old Stock Thiers Issard 25.5cm / 10" Plate-Semelle Abattre Butcher Knife Hand Forged Carbon Brass & Wenge Thiers 1980s-90s ?

Hand-forged carbon steel handled in wenge with brass cutlers rivets. This was found  with a wax coating and a few small rust spiders. Blade has a small amount of wavyness to it and is a bit irregular along the spine but is otherwise straight on the overall balance. 

This ‘Plate-Semelle’ or ‘flat plate’ flat-forged knife was made in Thiers, France. it is a little difficult to say exactly when this was forged, Thirs Issard handled and blade marked with a laser a good amount of old stock blades starting in the 1990s to 2010s. This blade was either forged in the 80s to 90s and handled then with wenge and laser marked or is an older blade with a handle applied in the 90s to 2010s. 

These were the working-class knives of their day. These stout butcher's knives with a chef knife profile are similar to a Japanese yo-deba but would have been used by butchers as a light cleaver; stiff and strong, with a good toughness and an excellent sharpenability.

Plate-Semelle knives represent the last, large-scale commercial application of a very old forging technique. First, a bar of steel was drawn out to form the blade on an old martinet mechanical hammer. The tang (handle area) is next drawn out on the hammer, making for a tapered blade and tang, with a thick area where the two meet at the neck. When forging, a large bulge in the steel would remain, which would be hammered and ground to a small bulge.

The origins of the nearly ubiquitous bolster on western knives lie in this bulge of steel where the blade and tang meet. During the Middle Ages, fine cutlery offered at noble and church banquets was an important mark of wealth and power. In the making of fine cutlery, the bulge in the center of the knife was left thick and intricately ground, in addition to other embellishments to the knife. This feature became emblematic of fine cutlery. It lives on today in the more subdued, less ornate bolsters that characterize western culinary knives and still signify that a knife is of high quality.

This knife does not come sharpened. Please request sharpening in the order notes section of the cart page, if desired.