New Knife

[Cyrano]

I have a new knife, courtesy of Drm50 who generously gave it to me. It's a J.A. Henckels folder with tools, sort of a German version of the SAK. I imagine the blades are of much better steel than the crystalized Swiss cheese of the SAKs. I also like the big rivets at each end holding the whole knife together and the large pins as pivots for the tools and anchors for the springs. Those springs have muscle; I bent back a couple of fingernails trying to open the thing, but I haven't had a chance to clean and oil it yet. It has the corkscrew while I get more use out of a Phillips head screwdriver. I'm not quite sure about the gadget with the fat pin on the side; I imagine it's a can opener but don't know how it works. On one side it's stamped with the Henckels logo and two words. One is 'NICHT' which means 'don't' but the other is poorly stamped and looks like 'FCSTENO' and I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. Anyone got a good guess?

I've shown it with another Henckels knife, which fills the niche also occupied by the Buck 110. Neither of these two Henckels are in the current catalog which contains only kitchen knives, and I wonder how many other types of Henckels are out there. Do any other knife collectors have Henckels that aren't kitchen knives? If so, let's see some photos.

 

[Ed Fowler]

Very nice knife, most practical! Could use a Phillips screw driver.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

The only free knife I gotten lately is one that I found.
It's not quite as nice as yours!

 

[Marshwheeling]

I have a Henckels multi-knife, with essentially the same array of tools, except that the can opener is a more conventional type. It is 3 5/8" closed and has milled stainless scales, sort of a gentleman's SAK. Actually, not scales but the liners; there are no separate scales. As a result, the knife is quite a bit thinner than a comparably-equipped SAK, and is quite unobtrusive in the pocket. I found it at an estate sale for a buck, but I also had to take some other, less interesting knives, at a buck each as well, so I really have five dollars into it. I carried it for several weeks until the novelty wore off, but it still goes in my pocket once in a while.

Here is a crappy cell phone pic:

Your opener works by cutting up through the can instead of down. Stab the point through the top of the can and use the pin on the rim as a fulcrum to lever the point upward.

If I rember correctly, Friodur is a process of cold-treating the steel, proprietary to Henckels. The stamp probably reads "Nicht Rostend" for "not rusting", like the one on my can opener.

Nice find.

 

[TotalDbag]

Looks like yours is the top one. Also, Festeno means fixed, so possibly "not fixed", though I'm pretty sure Marsh is correct with it actually being Rostend

 

[k22fan]

Henckels has made or at least licensed their name on most of the traditional slip joint pocket knife styles. I own three that all are marked Made in Germany and have the double man trade mark. Two are the same pattern small half whittlers. One has wood side covers. I found it in excellent condition in a box of odd junk at a gun show for $4. The other is identical except for its stag. It cost eleven times as much off eBay. My third Henkels is a bone sided 4" Stockman that has a third back spring for a forth fillet blade. That makes it a little chunky for a front pants pocket. I mostly wanted its odd variety of blades in my collection. I have not used one enough to say from experience but I've been lead to believe they have the same good blade steel used in Henckel's kitchen knives.

 

[Marshwheeling]

Zwilling=twins. The double man.

 

[Texas Star]

Zwillingswerk means Twin Works, and refers to the Astrological symbol of Gemini, the twins, Castor and Pollux. I'm a Gemini, so I'm smart and know stuff like this.


I have a traditional German lock blade hunting knife, with a main spear blade, a saw, and a strong corkscrew. Scales are colorful stag.


It's a Henckels, but I don't know the model. My father bought it for me in an upscale Dallas sporting goods store the year I entered the Air Force, 1963. It was not a cheap knife then, and would probably cost $250 or more, if it's still made.


This knife has a German silver bolster with decorative grooving/fluting at one end. I later had a smaller version, with plain brass bolster, more square. I sold the latter knife.


Both were probably intended to compete with Puma's Model 943, which I also have. If the Puma is still made in that model, it probably "lists" for some $300. Mine was a gift of Baron von Frankenberg und Ludwigsdorf. It has a suede pouch with drawstrings to hold the knife, if the owner wants to put it in a hunter's leather pouch, sort of like a woman's purse. Germans sometimes carry their knives, lunch, cartridges, a small camera, etc. in such bags.
Puma made a thicker model, Model 959, which added an awl, gutting blade, maybe more. I found it too thick and never owned one.

 

[Texas Star]

Fans of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series may be interested to know that when I got the Henckels, I was looking for a lockblade knife like Matt carried then in the books. He took his from a dead German soldier back when he was an agent in an organization similar to OSS, but which specialized in assassinations. He later returned to that agency in the first book of the series, Death of a Citizen.


Faced with a threat from his past, he armed himself with his Colt Woodsman .22 and that knife.


This was before Buck introduced their Model 110, and most knives of that sort, with locking blades, were those patterns used by some German hunters in lieu of a sheath knife.
However, even if I carried a sheath knife, probably a Puma Outdoor or their fancier Model 3589, I'd carry a folder in my jacket or hunter's pouch, to have a spare knife and to have the saw blade and corkscrew. Besides, these knives are just pretty to take out and look at.


As a boy, my first sheath knife was a Bavarian pattern by Anton Wingen of Solingen. It has a 4.5 inch blade, and I still own it. It has their logo of Othello, the Moor, on the blade. But when I asked the lady who ran Wingen some years ago, she had no idea why the firm had used that logo. I suspect that the answer was lost in WWII. I'd be surprised if Solingen wasn't visited by Allied bombers.

 

[Cyrano]

If I rember correctly, Friodur is a process of cold-treating the steel, proprietary to Henckels. The stamp probably reads "Nicht Rostend" for "not rusting", like the one on my can opener.

Nice find.

I'm know about as much German as I do Swahili, but I would think that 'stainless' would be 'rostfrei' or 'inox', and the fact that it's on the can opener, not the main blade is unusual.

 

[MCorps0311]

Very nice knives,congrats.