High handle, low edge, and low tip?

[Nerdism_EDC]

Fantastic knife! Today i got one of the six ever made!

 

[The cow]

Every country tends to have its own "style" of knives. Khukuri and the puukko. A lot of these designs harken back to the french trade knife which were essentially chef's knives.
I don't know much about french culture, but it seems to be that they are a huge food culture. So many knives would have that high handle, low edge.

The US knife culture tends to be geared towards hunting/camping. Many knives tend to reflect that.

 

[vanadium]

Every country tends to have its own "style" of knives. Khukuri and the puukko. A lot of these designs harken back to the french trade knife which were essentially chef's knives.
I don't know much about french culture, but it seems to be that they are a huge food culture. So many knives would have that high handle, low edge.

Thanks for the pointer! I'm looking at French trade knives, and seeing high handles, and high edges... but not low tips. Still wondering how the low tip made its way into French knives.

 

[vanadium]

Fantastic knife! Today i got one of the six ever made!

Congrats, that Glamrock is a beauty! Did you buy it off kmaxrom? I'd love to hear a review.

 

[CKF]

 

[SpySmasher]

I'm about to tell a tale that is only tangentially apropos to this thread and very possibly wrong*. Nevertheless:

During the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War, the city of Paris was defended by a regiment of butchers, called to service by the mayor both because they came already armed with their knives and because they were so used to the sights and smells of slaughter.

*I think it was the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War but there is a very real possibility that I am confusng this event with another that took place during a different war in a different city. I listen to A LOT of history audiobooks and my memory is not that great.

 

[BladeScout]

Im a big fan of Perrin's knives - the PPT is effing awesome.

Also quite like the (Compact) Dragotac.

Several of Thiel's knives are quite nice.

As for the distinct look mentioned in the OP, Im a fan of that as well.

The PPT is one of my all time favorite folders, a great everyday and all-round user for mundane tasks and in my opinion, its a beautiful knife as well.

Street Bowie and Street Beat are also personal favorites.

Cant decide, which one I like best of the two Perrin bowies. They are both great.

The Beat is used more, as I mainly use it for everyday mundane tasks - cutting string, defeating mail, slicing tomatoes.

Perrin knives rock!!

 

[Officer's Match]

The Ossom is a great looking knife.

 

[Scott321]

I always thought that the low blade edge was inspired by the traditional butcher knives and French and German Chef's knives. The designs pictured throughout this post remind me of that style of blade edge placement with a modified sheepsfoot.

The blade placement is great for using more of the blade on the cutting board (e.g. cutting vegetables), although I usually use a chef's knife grip or a palm reinforced grip on shorter blades for this activity. Having a lowered tip makes it easier to engage the tip while slicing if required (although that can also work against you in the kitchen depending on the task).

The down side, at least for me as an EDC, is that for tasks that require more slicing pressure, the edge of the blade is now further away from the center of your grip, which can introduce additional torque forces (twisting in your hand) compared to a knife with a blade closer to the center line of the handle. This also introduces additional torque forces if you want to stab or disjoint things with the tip (e.g. disjointing a chicken thigh from a leg).

 

[lieferung]

Im a big fan of Perrin's knives - the PPT is effing awesome.

Also quite like the (Compact) Dragotac.

Several of Thiel's knives are quite nice.

As for the distinct look mentioned in the OP, Im a fan of that as well.

The PPT is one of my all time favorite folders, a great everyday and all-round user for mundane tasks and in my opinion, its a beautiful knife as well.

Street Bowie and Street Beat are also personal favorites.

Cant decide, which one I like best of the two Perrin bowies. They are both great.

The Beat is used more, as I mainly use it for everyday mundane tasks - cutting string, defeating mail, slicing tomatoes.

Perrin knives rock!!

Love the PPT design, and its grip and profile are great in the hand. The thing flicks like a dream too so it's great to fidget with. However I really can't bring myself to love it because of the ridiculously deep clip and its weight. I'm trying to find a custom maker who can assist with a lighter backspacer and higher clip.

 

[vanadium]

Love the PPT design, and its grip and profile are great in the hand. The thing flicks like a dream too so it's great to fidget with. However I really can't bring myself to love it because of the ridiculously deep clip and its weight. I'm trying to find a custom maker who can assist with a lighter backspacer and higher clip.

I don't know about the clip, but it's possible that Suingab could make you the backspacer. I just had a good interaction with him. You also might also be interested in the Thiel "Citizen" which looks to have some of the qualities of the PPT, but the backspacer is definitely composite. Skelton reviewed this knife and was not blown away by common mid-tech standards, but YMMV. I've never handled it but I'd love to.

During the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War, the city of Paris was defended by a regiment of butchers, called to service by the mayor both because they came already armed with their knives and because they were so used to the sights and smells of slaughter.

Wow, thanks for that! I would like to find a citation for this. There seem to be a number of historical conflicts involving butchers. A bit of searching didn't turn up much about butchers in the Armagnac–Burgundian conflict in particular, but it did get me searching for "couteaux boucher guerre" which quickly turned up this image:

These are auction items from a French arms expo, and are described so:

deux couteaux de tranchée 1ère guerre mondiale, modèle dit "de boucher"
​

That's "two trench knives from WWI, 'butcher' model". There we have it, a high-handled culinary combat knife from WWI. Pretty great.

Still lots of room for history to be filled in here, and I still want to know how the lower tip made its way into the design. It's probably high time I got in touch with Thiel, Coves, or Pohl, and just asked already.

 

[vanadium]

That's "two trench knives from WWI, 'butcher' model". There we have it, a high-handled culinary combat knife from WWI. Pretty great.

I'm still trying to find some corroboration for this being a "French WWI trench knife". So far there are no other examples I can find on the web of this design being called that. So, that's disappointing. However, here are some examples of a similar design:

Source is here. The description is:

Three African Trade Knives Made Circa 1900 1925 Top French Bottom Two German German Butcher Knives German Butcher Knife Bayonet German Butcher Knife Brands​

Based on this, these do appear (at the very least) to be a European style of butcher knife from the early 20th Century.

 

[vanadium]

I also stumbled on two Japanese traditional kitchen knife designs that are relevant. These have both high handle and low tip.

Above: Japanese "deba" (source)

Above: Japanese "gyutou", with European-style handle (source)

 

[Lapedog]

Has the OP checked out Bastinelli knives? He does lots of stuff with low edges lined up with the knuckles.

 

[BladeScout]

Has the OP checked out Bastinelli knives?

Id say yes

- Bastien Coves (Bastinelli Safe, Bastinelli Drago)

 

[vanadium]

Street Bowie and Street Beat are also personal favorites.

Those are beautiful, especially with the micarta. Looks like I missed the boat on these when they were still being made. Got an extra one to sell me?

 

[vanadium]

I'm also gonna re-post some knives from the first page of this thread (where a bunch of images are gone because of Photobucket being a bunch of dickheads who think that damaging the same online communities who supported them is a business development strategy).

Above: Sacha Thiel "Officer"

Above: Spyderco "Rock Lobster" (Jens Ansø design)

 

[vanadium]

Has the OP checked out Bastinelli knives? He does lots of stuff with low edges lined up with the knuckles.

Yup. Check out the whole thread. Have you handled any them? I'd love to hear some impressions from someone who's not trying to sell one. ;-) I tried a Dragotac at a shop last year, and the action-detent-lockup was really unimpressive, but I have no idea if that's typical. The Bastinelli "Safe" looks really interesting, but I've never felt like gambling $350 on one.

 

[vanadium]

Here's a knife I found that ticks all the boxes. Sorry, no source on this image. Anybody recognize the maker or the style? It shows up on Pinterest being associated with Giedymin Kapuscinski. Is it your knife, @giedymin?

Anyway, Kapuscinski is really into high arched handles, and some of them have low tips. There's a mega thread of his work going on here. I've barely begun to make my way through that thread, but the work looks really impressive. Here's one high-arched-handle low-edge low-tip model:

 

[P7HVN]

Some of Jeff Diotte's knives have a nice dropped blade design. Along with several of Graham's Razel models...