American Nogent Style 12" Chef Forged Carbon Steel Antler Re-Handle

A very unusual American stick tang 'Nogent style' chef knife  re-handled with a stag handle and steel ferrule. A set of American stick tang knives with stag re-handles was found in a large collection recently, they are a little bit of a mystery but are nicely done and are excellent late 19th to early 20th century forged blades. Certainly not factory production handles however. While thought of largely as a French style knife (especially after the city of Nogent) the stick tang with collar design was used all over Europe, the UK and the USA. 

This blade is even more enigmatically marked near the spine USA and SF CA on the opposite side, secondary marks I am assuming rather than from a manufacturer, they do not match any San Francisco makers that I am aware of. There are no other makers marks but this is a style made by New England knife makers in the 19th and early 20th century. 

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.