New Old Stock Pino Extra 9" Chef Knife Carbon Plum Wood Handle Maniago, Italy ~1950s 60s

New old stock Pino Extra 9" chef knife made in Maniago, Italy, most likely in the 1950s or 60s. Blade is hand-forged, hand-ground carbon steel, and the handle is hafted in what looks like plum wood with a pin-and-disc rosette rivet. 

These are part of a batch of unused vintage Italian knives we have found and are very unusual to come by, these were not exported to the United States very much and show up used hardly ever. I can count on one hand the number of vintage Italian knives of this era I have found in 20 years of dealing in vintage knives.

This is a great example of historic small-industry knife-making from several small towns in Northern Italy. Similar to French knives of this basic construction, they were made to be affordable work knives in their day; little vanity was paid to finish, but they have a lot of charm.

The blade was originally unsharpened, not flat when set down on a level surface, and profoundly dull. Typically, we leave new old stock knives with their original factory edge to preserve the history of their manufacture, but these were not quite usable. We have taken the liberty of flattening the edge, thinned the faces for better geometry, and sharpened the edge so the knife can be used. There are some irregularities to the blade being hand forged, which make this a bit difficult to get laser straight and free of small undulations of the face, but nothing like it is made today.