Ed Wusthof Dreizack 12" Chef Knife Carbon Steel Walnut / Fruit Wood Solingen 1920-50s

Ed Wusthof (est. 1814) 11" chef knife with old Trident logo on hand-forged carbon steel blade (tapered tang) with walnut or fruitwood (pear?) handle, riveted with old-style steel pin and nickel washer pin and disc rivets. This knife has been reground as it was a bit thick behind the edge but has been re-profiled in the old Wusthof shape with a nearly symmetrical triangular shape.

While this knife had been used extensively in its last life the blade is very straight and the handle is in great shape, the wood is free from cracks and the pin and disc rivets tight and secure. 

Anecdotally, for every 500 old carbon steel Henckels I have come across, I've found only one old carbon Wusthof; they weren't directly imported into the USA until the late 50s, and not in significant numbers until the late 60s into the 70s, when the brand took off in the USA with the machine-made stainless more similar to today's knives.

This knife predates Wusthof's model of automation replacing hand work during the Marshall Plan-era retooling of post-WW2 Solingen. Lots of Solingen's industrial equipment was either destroyed or taken by the British after the war, so a lot of industry was re-imagined. Mr. Wusthof aimed to keep as few employees as possible; first, hand-forging and then hand-grinding became a thing of the past. 

We re-ground and thinned this knife behind the edge on a large 3-foot-diameter Japanese water stone wheel (kaiten mizu toishi), then resurfaced it 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 greatly improves a knife's performance, as it sticks less than a flat face and doesn't get as thick behind the edge nearly as fast as a flat-faced blade. Since we often work with old blades that need re-shaping and may be rusted, except for minor imperfections, we try to give our re-ground blades a fresh start, keeping their original grind style and retaining as much metal as possible.