- Joined
- May 21, 2011
- Messages
- 3,132
Hi everyone,
I'll start this story from the beginning, as every good story should. A couple of years ago, my grandmother was cleaning out her garage with the help of the family. We found lot's of rubbish, but some neat items as well. She gave me some old cleavers, and a folding knife. A few months ago she found yet another stash with old kitchen knives and an old Sölingen folding knife.
A few years ago I already posted that first folding knife in a thread here on Bladeforums: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...t?p=9673415&highlight=grandmother#post9673415.
Then, a couple of years passed. I still didn't really know what kind of knife it was, apart from the fact that it was used by my greatgrandfather, who used it for eating and other everyday tasks until he passed away a couple of decades ago.
Great was my surprise when a couple of months ago, this thread popped up: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...the-belgian-german-border?highlight=lierenaar. I immediately recognized the pattern, the lock type and so on. I asked the topicstarter to inform me on where to get one of these reincarnations, and another forummember (maethor) helped me to acquire one of these.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a package from maethor including the knife Humppa made me aware of.
Great! So this is where we are now. What do we know about this knife? Apparently, it's called a "Lierenaar", referring to the city of Lier in Belgium. It seems that knives with this pattern were made in a region that stretches approximately 30 km, from Lier in the North, to Heist-op-den-Berg in the middle, to Aarschot in the South. Humppa called it a knife from the Belgian-German border region, but I wouldn't call it that way, but that's probably a cognitive aspect. For me, the German border would be about 150 km away, which seems quite far in my -Belgian- eyes since I live in a small country and I live close to the center of my country, which does not make me consider my location (close to Lier) close to the German border at all. Of course, a German who's being used to live in a larger country probably laughs at a distance of 150km. Anyway, I diverge.
So, about the Lierenaar. It was made in the region where I grew up, up until somewhere around the early 1900s when it dissapeared of the radar. Weird.
I contacted several tourism offices in the region, asking them about the Lierenaar, but they didn't even know what I was talking about. So far for cultural heritage in the region:thumbdn:. I did find a mention of "Lierenaar" in a dictionary with our local dialect. It meant: "Inhabitant of Lier" or "Small folding knife". Apparently, at one time it was quite common, so that inhabitants used the term as a pars pro toto. When they would ask if they could borrow your Lierenaar, they just wanted to borrow your folding knife. I think that's a sweet anecdote.
Anyway, that's pretty much all that I know of, apart from the fact that there seem to be some modern interpretations of this locktype by some custom knifemakers.
On to the pics now, shall we? This is getting way too boring and technical, no?:yawn:
So, here are some pics of the old Lierenaar from my greatgrandfather:
Time for some pictures of the new reincarnation by Robert Herder from Sölingen:
How about the promised comparison pics?
As you can see, the reincarnation by Robert Herder is quite a bit larger than the original one from my greatgrandfather. I'm not aware of any size differences around the 1900s, but I can imagine that there were plenty...
Next to size, there are some slight differences in regard to the locking mechanism. The old one seems to be more leaf shaped, whereas the new one is more like a spatula or something.
This picture nicely shows the cutout on top of the blade, where the blade locks into the lockbar. On top of that, you can see that old Lierenaar's lockbar is integrated into the handles with a pin, whereas the lockbar on the new Lierenaar is rested on top of the handle, held in place by pins pointing downwards.
FYI, the blade thickness of the new Lierenaar is about 2.2mm at its thickest, whereas the blade thickness of the older -and smaller- one is about 1.38mm, almost a full mm thinner. The thin, full flat (of very high convex, can't really tell because the blade is so thin) blade profile allows for some very fine cutting, think Opinel-type fine cutting and even better. The overall building quality is far from excellent though. The lock design inherentely allows for some up and down play, which might bother some. In neither example both scales are evenly wide or very nicely finished. That doesn't matter to me though, what matters is the cultural and local historical appeal of these blades to me personally. I like their overall -somewhat goofy- looks and the simplicity of these blades. Simple in design, simple in materials. I quite like that, it's 'something else'.
Well, that's about it. I'm still trying to find out more about this piece of local history by contacting local historians and the like. If I do find more info, I'll definitely post it here.
I hope you guys enjoyed the story and the pics!
I'll start this story from the beginning, as every good story should. A couple of years ago, my grandmother was cleaning out her garage with the help of the family. We found lot's of rubbish, but some neat items as well. She gave me some old cleavers, and a folding knife. A few months ago she found yet another stash with old kitchen knives and an old Sölingen folding knife.
A few years ago I already posted that first folding knife in a thread here on Bladeforums: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...t?p=9673415&highlight=grandmother#post9673415.
Then, a couple of years passed. I still didn't really know what kind of knife it was, apart from the fact that it was used by my greatgrandfather, who used it for eating and other everyday tasks until he passed away a couple of decades ago.
Great was my surprise when a couple of months ago, this thread popped up: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...the-belgian-german-border?highlight=lierenaar. I immediately recognized the pattern, the lock type and so on. I asked the topicstarter to inform me on where to get one of these reincarnations, and another forummember (maethor) helped me to acquire one of these.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a package from maethor including the knife Humppa made me aware of.
Great! So this is where we are now. What do we know about this knife? Apparently, it's called a "Lierenaar", referring to the city of Lier in Belgium. It seems that knives with this pattern were made in a region that stretches approximately 30 km, from Lier in the North, to Heist-op-den-Berg in the middle, to Aarschot in the South. Humppa called it a knife from the Belgian-German border region, but I wouldn't call it that way, but that's probably a cognitive aspect. For me, the German border would be about 150 km away, which seems quite far in my -Belgian- eyes since I live in a small country and I live close to the center of my country, which does not make me consider my location (close to Lier) close to the German border at all. Of course, a German who's being used to live in a larger country probably laughs at a distance of 150km. Anyway, I diverge.
So, about the Lierenaar. It was made in the region where I grew up, up until somewhere around the early 1900s when it dissapeared of the radar. Weird.
I contacted several tourism offices in the region, asking them about the Lierenaar, but they didn't even know what I was talking about. So far for cultural heritage in the region:thumbdn:. I did find a mention of "Lierenaar" in a dictionary with our local dialect. It meant: "Inhabitant of Lier" or "Small folding knife". Apparently, at one time it was quite common, so that inhabitants used the term as a pars pro toto. When they would ask if they could borrow your Lierenaar, they just wanted to borrow your folding knife. I think that's a sweet anecdote.
Anyway, that's pretty much all that I know of, apart from the fact that there seem to be some modern interpretations of this locktype by some custom knifemakers.
On to the pics now, shall we? This is getting way too boring and technical, no?:yawn:
So, here are some pics of the old Lierenaar from my greatgrandfather:
Time for some pictures of the new reincarnation by Robert Herder from Sölingen:
How about the promised comparison pics?
As you can see, the reincarnation by Robert Herder is quite a bit larger than the original one from my greatgrandfather. I'm not aware of any size differences around the 1900s, but I can imagine that there were plenty...
Next to size, there are some slight differences in regard to the locking mechanism. The old one seems to be more leaf shaped, whereas the new one is more like a spatula or something.
This picture nicely shows the cutout on top of the blade, where the blade locks into the lockbar. On top of that, you can see that old Lierenaar's lockbar is integrated into the handles with a pin, whereas the lockbar on the new Lierenaar is rested on top of the handle, held in place by pins pointing downwards.
FYI, the blade thickness of the new Lierenaar is about 2.2mm at its thickest, whereas the blade thickness of the older -and smaller- one is about 1.38mm, almost a full mm thinner. The thin, full flat (of very high convex, can't really tell because the blade is so thin) blade profile allows for some very fine cutting, think Opinel-type fine cutting and even better. The overall building quality is far from excellent though. The lock design inherentely allows for some up and down play, which might bother some. In neither example both scales are evenly wide or very nicely finished. That doesn't matter to me though, what matters is the cultural and local historical appeal of these blades to me personally. I like their overall -somewhat goofy- looks and the simplicity of these blades. Simple in design, simple in materials. I quite like that, it's 'something else'.
Well, that's about it. I'm still trying to find out more about this piece of local history by contacting local historians and the like. If I do find more info, I'll definitely post it here.
I hope you guys enjoyed the story and the pics!
Your greatgrandfathers knife really has a lot of character. Thanks for sharing.
