No knives, only cook knives

Changing perceptions of value and a rude encounter with Ichabod Crane and Xavier Cugat at the flea market --by Josh Donald

“Within about 5 to 8 years, it seems one of these dealers heard from someone that a Sabatier sold for $100 online, and after that, every Sabatier became worth $100, and in the eyes of many, every chef knife became a Sabatier.”

When I first started buying vintage knives at the flea market, I had a few prearranged stops: people who would regularly find knives and liked dealing with me, and I liked dealing with them, too. Otherwise, I would walk around asking the sellers if they had any knives. In the early days from 2005 to 2008, it was common for people to say, “No, but I do have some cook knives”. Most people asking around for knives at 6 am back then were looking for old military, pocket, and hunting knives. Culinary knives were considered chaff, often sold for $1 to $5 because they were deemed to have little value beyond utilitarian use. Within about 5 to 8 years, it seems one of these dealers heard from someone that a Sabatier sold for $100 online, and after that, every Sabatier became worth $100, and in the eyes of many, every chef' knife became a Sabatier. Deceased people whose families had no interest in their stuff and people who didn’t pony up on their storage unit bills started having fewer and fewer good knives in their stuff, and eventually, the volume of good culinary knives made their way less and less to the market. This is the short version of my small microcosm as seen from a Bay Area perspective; maybe it's different elsewhere, but this is my experience.

“There would be a feeding frenzy as good stuff was available to be found from about 5 am to 7:30 am.”

There would be a feeding frenzy as good stuff was available to be found from about 5 am to 7:30 am. The fresh goods were put out first thing in the morning. By then, the best stuff had been snatched up by the professional pickers before the general public arrived around 8 or 9. At this time, sometimes a second tier of boxes would come out, and something good would turn up. By this time, I had been walking for 3 or 4 hours and would be getting hungry, and the tiredness would be setting in, my eyes would feel dry, and my face would hurt from sleep deprivation. This feeling was a familiar feeling at this time in my life, with kids born in ‘04 and ‘08, little sleep, and the necessity to work long hours when I could. Sunday was especially long hours, even if a baby had been up the night before; getting in a good haul was crucial in those days. A couple of bags heavy with knives by 7 or 8 meant I could go home early and start cleaning that week’s finds. If I got started early enough, I might sell enough to have a good buying budget by next Sunday and even spend lavishly on rent, bills, and food.

“I would walk on by if I saw them, keep scanning for the telltale handle of a chef knife, a box that could contain pocket knives, or a box of kitchen utensils that could have a stowaway knife in it”

I learned what to pass up, mostly the hard way, buying a knife for $10 and selling it for $8 at auction, for instance, or that any knife with a chef’s name on it would probably get laughed at in a professional kitchen. These shame-filled events and their associated knives were etched in my memory. I would walk on by if I saw them, keep scanning for the telltale handle of a chef knife, a box that could contain pocket knives, or a box of kitchen utensils that could have a stowaway knife in it. I could scan the primmest, most tastefully turned out booth in 10 seconds and the biggest heap of meth rubble that vomited itself out the back of a dirty white van in 20 seconds. I got good at finding things quickly and keeping a straight face, asking how much something was when I found something great. There were a few other guys who were also looking for knives; sometimes they had another specialty too, maybe old fishing gear or old pens or lighters. There were generalist buyers and specialists like me, the Johnny one notes. There were the watch guys (they were all guys), the camera people, the jewelry people who formed little conspiratorial-looking huddles with little bottles of acid and scales. The book people were usually very easy-going, and the people looking for art were often the most hostile, snotty, bump you and not say ‘excuse me’ types. The worst offender looked like a nelly Ichabod Crane and wore the least convincing toupee since Xavier Cugat. For the most part, some of the most polite were the knife guys; they would never start digging around in a box you were already sorting. Getting stabbed wasn’t a threat per se, but multiple hands in a box of knives is a bad idea. We would wait and even tell others if we passed up something somebody else might be into.

“I could scan the primmest, most tastefully turned out booth in 10 seconds and the biggest heap of meth rubble that vomited itself out the back of a dirty white van in 20 seconds.”

Typically, a trip to the market would lead up to a time late in the morning when I would start to get the feeling that it was time to go. Often, I was still looking around, maybe I hadn’t made a good buy in 30 minutes to an hour, or someone I hoped to see wasn’t there. Maybe another market was happening somewhere else that drew a lot of regular vendors away. Anyhow, at this ‘certain time’ I would be feeling a little desperate to make a score and would start looking at stuff I typically wouldn’t. Certain vendors who generally priced things too high or had the same shit on display for months and years, one side getting bleached from the sun, baking away Sunday after Sunday in a wood box under a heavily worn sheet of plexiglass, looking like the smell of a diaper pail. I would ask myself what the hell I was doing looking at that sunbleached shit and would make the walk up the hill home to drink coffee and take my kids to the playground. Other times, I would pick things up that I knew had little value just to pick something up. I did have one hard and fast metric for when it was time to go home, like a disciplined barfly who held themselves to certain standards, and that was when I intentionally picked up a Forgecraft or Old Hickory knife.

These knives are not really bad for inexpensive American-made carbon steel knives from the 1950s and ‘60s. They are instantly recognizable, with boxy hickory handles and a kind of rectangular waffle pattern with a black forge scale and a big, wide primary grind on the carbon steel blades. There were so many of them, and typically the condition was so-so (like airplane food that was awful and in such small portions). They never fetched much, but they were fine from a utilitarian standard, provided they weren’t too thick from being sharpened down 500 times. From my perspective, even if purchased cheaply, they just treaded water money-wise and were not worth the time. I had a contract with myself; if I picked one up, it was time to go home. It was usually about 9:30 by that time, and everything good was gone. More than just the association with the disappointment of getting a final bid of $12.48 on an ebay auction after having spent $10, I rejected them for the self-loathing of needy 9:30 am flea market choices. Self-consciously having an emotional need to be lucky and feeling like a ragpicker. Fuck that.

Around 2018, I began noticing people bringing re-handled Forgecraft chef knives to the shop for sharpening. I was a little dumbstruck; it struck me as more than a little weird. I think I also felt that all my efforts to introduce people to the great old culinary knives were in vain, as this trailer trash was being crowned. I vaguely remember acting the cranky old man, accusing people of ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ when finding them rehandling expensive materials in sharpening orders. Maybe I wasn’t being fair, I suspected but I also didn’t understand why go to so much trouble to re-handle and polish a Forgecraft.

That said, the overall footprint geometry of a brand new Forgecraft chef knife is not terrible aside from the thickness of the tip half. In designing chef knives, I default to essentially a more symmetrical-sided triangle of a footprint like the Forgecraft has. it’s actually a bit more wa-gyuto-like than a typical Western knife, and if one is determined / sophisticated enough, the wide primary bevels do allow for thinning. It’s still a little to thick to cut nicely, I think, but with a good thinning, the geometry isn’t bad. The .95% carbon steel is not hard to sharpen and can take a fairly fine edge. I don’t seem to remember them keeping an edge super well, times that I have experimented with them but I do remember being very happy with one for a short period of time that I got from Jivano on 18th street (where 18 Reasons is now) in 1993 or 94. I did have several that I used in my home kitchens before starting Bernal Cutlery, and after starting, I did use a Forgecraft chef knife early on, in about 2005 or 6, for a few weeks. Beyond being a worse sharpener than I realized back then, they are too thick and don’t seem to hold an edge really well.

“I had to ask myself in my orthodoxy, was I being like the old timers at the flea market who told me they didn’t have any knives but had some kitchen knives? Did resale value influence my assessment of the intrinsic value of these knives?”

So I started touching Forgecraft knives again, and maybe giving them a less judgmental view. I had to ask myself in my orthodoxy, was I being like the old timers at the flea market who told me they didn’t have any knives but had some kitchen knives? Did resale value influence my assessment of the intrinsic value of these knives? To be fair, I could start to see why people were excited by them, but also had a little bit of suspicion as the nearly identical ‘Old Hickory’ knives made by the Ontario knife company got no love, and I suspected there was a kind of internet trend going on with Forgecraft. Both seem to be a soft heat treatment of a fairly high carbon content non-stainless steel; 1095 (.95% carbon), with the forge scale waffle pattern face and big wide primary bevels and hickory handles.

In re-examining my attitudes about the Forgecraft chef knife (I still think they are a little ungraceful in their lack of taper and heavy tip), I have thought about changing tastes and young people getting into old stuff. The Forgecraft craze is over, I think, but I am happy to see younger people take a new interest in old culinary knives. While there will be other fads that come and go with it I think this interest has an immense durability as culinary knives are not going away, and they represent an item from history that we can directly relate to using. That said I will shit when people start collecting Ikea knives, I hope I live long enough to see it so then I can scoff.