RAZOR SHARP Vintage MASSIVE Hand-Forged Carbon Steel Chef Knife, LA HACHE France

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You may return this item for ANY reason, including Buyer's Remorse.Please read our Terms below for details.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NOTE: I noticed that another seller here on eBay has this same knife for sale at virtually an identical price. If you're a collector, buy his. If you're going to use this knife, buy this one. Read the full discription for explanation.With its extra-heavy-duty 11.75" blade (measures 16.5" overall) that's 3" wide and 9/32" thick at the hilt, this superb vintage chef knife is a hand-forged demon the likes of which most have seldom before been seen, let alone held, and the only thing more impressive that its quality is the superb condition in which it is found here. It's virtually new but the other guy selling one has one that's new/old stock, so if you're going to buy one and put it under glass to be seen only and never used, buy that one. This one, however, has been professionally edged for this sale by Ross Cutlery of downtown Los Angeles, the best in the business. As such it's MUCH sharper than when it was new and it will perform rings around that other guy's knife. So if you're going to be using this knife, buy THIS one.It was made shortly after WWII by the maker LaHache in the Alsace regiion of France, near the German border, using a blade that was forged prior to WWII (a not uncommon practice). To say the least, it is a model of quality, craftsmanship, performance and especially condition. The blade is hand-forged carbon steel of the highest quality. In the USA knives like this were usually sold for splitting lobsters in the kitchen or for use in the meat locker where it would have been found quickly splitting and quartering medium-sized livestock, like lamb and veal, or game, like deer. In France, however, and throughout the more elite eateries of Europe a knife like this would've been known as a cuisine massif or a chef de chef , and its uses were innumerable, limited only by the chef's imagination. From chopping a bushel of veggies into rattatouie to waferizing a single clove of garlic, there was nothing the torturously apprenticed chefs of the old Ritz Escoffier tradition could not do with such a knife.Especially noteworthy about this piece is the bocote wood handle with which it's been hafted, using the old-fashioned iron-inside-brass birdseye rivets. This singularly beautiful handle is warm to the touch and easy on the eyes and the knife in your hand is surprisingly well-balanced in spite of its 33-ounce heft. Many hunters have employed knives like this in the field, where such a knife is an indispensable way of quickly quartering and dressing fallen game of any size for transport--a necessity in bitter weather or in areas like Kodiak or Michigan's Upper Peninsula where competing predators are a genuine consideration. In the kitchen or meat locker it will serve double or triple duty performing its original tasks and will probably tackle those tasks far better than anything on the modern market. Such a knife is well worth the expense of having a sheath custom made for it and strapped to a man's side you can be sure that it would be the center of all attention and the envy of all who got a glimpse of what such a piece is capable of.As you'd fully expect from any such knife of this vintage, its blade is some of the finest hand-forged carbon steel ever affixed to a handle, capable of taking the finest possible edge and keeping it with relative ease, outperforming just about anything on the modern market today. Of course, it must be kept dry to prevent rusting but such a minor inconvenience is well worth it when considering the quantum leap in quality such a knife offers. To obtain anything even remotely similar one would have to commisison a custom knifemaker to produce a knife on your behalf but you wouldn't be getting ANYTHING hand-forged in this size or shape without spending close to a thousand dollars And even at that price it would be tough to find craftsmanship and skill to match that of F... read more

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