Contento - Germany

[strategy9]

Just curious if anyone knows any details about the brand. Who made them, what they were about, etc.

I came across an old rusty laguiole style contento in our house, which one can only assume once belonged to her grandfather who owned the house before us, and was found in an old box of his stuff.
My own online search yielded nothing except a bunch of primarily past auction listings of other "vintage" contento knives, some much nicer then mine, some not, but nothing extraordinary nor anything of value to me in terms of the brand history itself.

The steel all looks okay, relatively speaking, in terms if cleaning up and making useable again. I've cleaned up a few old straight razors, and a pair of other old slippies, so my plan is to do just that, clean it up just a bit, but keep it rustic, clean up the edge, and use it as our desktop letter opener, and one day the kid might have something cool passed down from his great grandfather who died the year after he was born.
I just want to know a little bit more about it.

I could honestly care less about its potential value as it's a family keepsake, I happen to like knives and my wife is the sentimental type, which all in itself makes it invaluable to us.

Thank you in advance.

 

[John A. Larsen]

Goins just has "Contento Made in Germany g1950-1960". I saw a nice sodbuster made by them, but larger than most sodbusters. John

 

[strategy9]

Goins just has "Contento Made in Germany g1950-1960". I saw a nice sodbuster made by them, but larger than most sodbusters. John

Yeah, I've seen claims of 1960-80
1940-60
Even 1920-1980
Seen some ww2 claims, which be 40's, but not reliably sourced.

I would just love to know more about them.

 

[GermanyChris]

Here's a forum post on contento:

https://www.messerforum.net/showthread.php?123119-Contento-Messer

It says something to the effect that it was a brand of Peter Altenbach and sons then goes on to talk about the sale of the company.

When I googled Peter Altenbach & Söhne I come up with a lot of miscellaneous stuff that I'll let you sort through if you'd like.

 

[strategy9]

Here's a forum post on contento:

https://www.messerforum.net/showthread.php?123119-Contento-Messer

It says something to the effect that it was a brand of Peter Altenbach and sons then goes on to talk about the sale of the company.

When I googled Peter Altenbach & Söhne I come up with a lot of miscellaneous stuff that I'll let you sort through if you'd like.

You definitely helped steer me in the right direction, thank you, at least there is a name/brand connection, and fml you weren't kidding about "miscellaneous stuff"....

So far what I've come up with; Peter Altenbach and Sohne's earliest cutlery appearance appears to be in the late 1920's with regards to straight razors.
The company's last appearance was a registered trademark for P.A.S. Schwanenwerk, applied for in 1978, expired in 1998, and they made more then just knives but spoons, forks, egg beaters, bottle openers, etc.

As for the "contento" name, the best I could come up with so far is that it appears pre 1930 regarding straight razors, but nothing specific, definitive, or convincing (yet) regarding knives to tie an actual date to the moniker. Without assuming I'm guessing that if it was used pre 30's for SR's under that name, then 30's-40's for knives wouldn't be out of the question?

So many questions still unanswered though.

So many new questions, like who was peter altenbach?
And who was his sohne???