[Guillaume Vauthier]

Hi all, I haven't been posting around here since such a long time!

As you all know, big knives were quite widespread in history in all countries and cultures. Germans had Bauernwehre and Hauswehre, in USA the Bowie knives (and affiliates) left its name in history. In southern America, facones and other puñales are still in use today. Spanish and Italian people were also reknown for their huge knives at some point. In Asia, there are also plenty of them : Khyber knives, kukhuris, yataghans and so on.

I felt a little bit frustrated to see that such a number of american "big knives" blades were actually made in Europe - actually I even found an old stock of facones/puñales blades here in Nogent, next to my birthplace, which was a big place in historic french cutlery. And with that, I never saw some examples of "purely" french historical big knives in museum or websites.

I'm sure that back in the days some french people were using them. For example, in northeastern France (which is under germanic influence) some bauernwehre were excavated, and in the south I'm sure that italian and spanish style knives can be found. But have you ever seen some documents/illustration of big knives presented in french context? Or, even better, historical examples ?

Thanks for all and ave a great day!

[Zach Gordon]

A lot of Navaja’s like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/609883562/antique-french-france-haudeville-en
were made in, and ostensibly used and carried in the south of France. The laguiole knives are based off of the Navaja design, and there is a bit of chicken/egg scenario in the history of the two designs’ development.