Question; toothpick and Laguiole.

[jackknife]

Please forgive me if this has been covered before, I can only plead senior citizen senility if so. But I was looking at a Laguiole and a large case toothpick, and there seems to be a strong family resemblence. Is the toothpick a decendent of the Laguiole that was brought in by the French in the great waves of immigrants we had in the late 1800's?

Since so many of our traditional designs have roots in the "old" country like the sodbuster of eastern Europe and the barlow from old England, I have to wonder about the toothpick.

 

[puukkoman]

Sounds reasonable to me, although I have no specific knowledge to back up my opinion...

 

[dalee100]

Hi,

I would agree with you Jackknife. If nothing else, it would be nearly impossible to prove you wrong.

In fact, I think one can trace "foreign" influence in all of the traditional slip-joint designs in this country. Simply because we all came from somewhere else and brought those designs with us.

dalee

 

[Blues]

From Levine's Guide (IV):

The "Tickler" is the American clasp knife pattern that looks most like the southern European clasp knife or navaja.

Ticklers have several picturesque names: Texas toothpicks..."powder horns"...

American made ticklers seem to have been introduced in the 1890's.

 

[Unsub]

I tend to think your right and they share DNA but it could also be that the knives were designed for the same type of work so ended up similar.

 

[SPC_rex]

I think they're cousins too. Nothing to back it up. Anyone here handled a Lagioule knife?? Does that bee on the back hold the blade in place like a lock?

 

[augustus88]

The "bee" on my Lagioule knife serve no purpose other than being decorative. It's a wide flattened part of the back spring that is filed/carved to look like a bee. It functions the same way as a typical slipjoint backspring. There is no locking mechanism.

 

[Yosemite Sam]

The "bee" on my Lagioule knife serve no purpose other than being decorative. It's a wide flattened part of the back spring that is filed/carved to look like a bee. It functions the same way as a typical slipjoint backspring. There is no locking mechanism.

Yep. And the spring is so stiff on mine it has no need of a lock.

One of the favored knives in my collection, it gets less pocket time than it should because it's a little thick. But it's never far from me in the house. I love the 12C27 blade steel on mine.

The first time my wife looked at it she said, "No wonder they're popular, they look like a woman's leg." In fact, I think Smiling-Knife has used the continental "leg knife" to describe the general shape.

-- Sam