Vintage knives   a sound investment

Cutting tools undoubtedly play a significant role in human evolution. Respected anthropologists and historians are on record with assertions that development of blade-ware has fuelled the technology without which our civilisation would have come to a grinding halt.

Whatever the academic theories, today we take a knife for granted. It’s something with which to slice up stuff in the kitchen for the family dinner and subsequently use a smaller version to reduce it to bite-sized portions on our plate. It’s also now a functional, well-made tool from many manufacturing sources that only a foolhardy modern hunter or fisher would venture forth without.

This was not always so. Quality blade-ware once was a very scarce and desirable luxury item, forged and crafted by the sweat of brow on an anvil by skilled artisans for specific use. Examples of their art flavour the dishes of fantasy. Where would Hollywood filmmakers be without visions of swashbuckling heroes delivering justice with their sabres, or villains engaged in mayhem with similar tools? While Hollywood tends to exaggerate somewhat and is inclined to bend the truth more than a little, it is right in one respect: in those not-so-distant times most knives and swords were designed