History
The Opinel knife was invented by Joseph Opinel in 1890 in Savoie as a simple working man's or peasant's knife. It proved popular with the local farmers, herdsmen, and paysans-vignerons (peasant winemakers) of the area. In 1897, a series of twelve sizes, numbered 1 to 12, was developed. From 1901-1903, Joseph Opinel built his first factory in Pont de Gévoudaz and produced a machine for mass production of the knife's wooden handles.
To distribute his new range of knives, Opinel utilized the time-honored method of hiring peddlers to sell the knife, installing a small shop near the Chambéry railway junction, where the knives became popular with PLM railroad workers, who in the course of their work spread word of the new knife all over France. By 1909, Opinel had registered his first trademark for the Opinel knife, choosing the main couronnée ('crowned hand") as his emblem. A few years later Opinel annual sales were in the hundreds of thousands, and by the start of World War II as many as 20 million knives had been sold.
The Opinel Virobloc or safety twistlock mechanism was invented by Marcel Opinel in 1955, greatly increasing the safety and versatility of the knife by allowing the blade to be locked in the open position. In 2000, the Virobloc locking mechanism was improved to allow locking the blade in either the open or closed position.
The company is still run by the Opinel family, and Opinel sells around 15 million knives annually. A museum dedicated to the Opinel knife (Le Musée de l'Opinel) is located at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.
Read more about this topic: Opinel Knife
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise OBrien (b. 1917)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940)
“History is more or less bunk. Its tradition. We dont want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinkers damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (18631947)