Wusthof Trident Dreizack 15.5" Chef Knife Carbon Steel Ebony Solingen Germany 1950s -60s

Massive Wusthof Trident Dreizack 15.5" (2.25lbs) chef knife with hand forged carbon steel blade (tapered tang) with semi recently redone ebony handle.

Anecdotally for every 500 old carbon steel Henckels I have come across only one old carbon Wusthof is found, they were not directly imported into the USA until the late 50's and not in significant numbers until the late 60s into the 70s when the brand took off in the USA.

This is about as big as I have found from Wusthof, while it had been sharpened in a little when found and the handle is not original this is none the less a phenominal find representing the last of en era of Solingen culinary knife forging. 

This knife is from the post war period before more automated process and stainless steel dominate Wusthof production, the logo that is still visible is the narrow strip of text that post dates the larger hot stamped trident lower down the blade face. This type is found on stainless blades transitioning into more modern production styles. 

While the logo is bringing us closer to modern production the construction of this knife is still done in mostly the old way; hand forged and hand ground after being drop forged, a style of knife-making that propelled Solingen knife produciton after the adoption of the drop forge in the 1870s. The use of hand forging after this initial shaping and skilled hand grinding lasted in the post war period when Solingen and Wusthof in particular adopted less labor intensive techniques, by the 1970s hand forging was largely gone from production and Wusthof was able to produce lots of stainless knivs for export by reducing hand grinding. 

This knife was thick behind the edge when found and 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 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. 

15 1/2" blade, 3 5/8" wide at heel, 21.25" overall