The price of a knife

To give you an image, knives universe is like cars universe.
Production country, style, performance, options… will decide the car price. Everyone will find what they are looking for.
The same goes for a knife.

Going into detail, here are key points to help you to better understand the quality of your knife and its value.

The first difference is between handmaking (or making knives piece per piece) and industrial manufacturing (products mechanically made and/or mass-production); a handmade product being of course more expensive than an industrial product.

Then, knives and cutlery pieces made with cut steel content less steel and their shapes are realised quiclier than forged articles.

To understand the differences between these 2 methods, please consult our blog post : “What is a forged knife ?”

• the resistance and maintenance of the cutting edge of your knives
• the brightness of your cutlery pieces
• Corrosion resistance for cutlery, and balance between corrosion resistance and cutting quality, for knives

Coutellerie GOYON-CHAZEAU proposes stainless steels that combine the best results for these key points.

More the pieces are cut in a thick steel, more they will be strong and expensive.

Be careful, however, that the blade of the knives is correctly worked afterwards. The thickness of a knife musn’t decrease the cutting edge quality. That’s why the grinding quality is more that important.

There are several grinding types.

GOYON-CHAZEAU proposes a V grinding, or full blade cutting edge which allows the widest use. It offers a strong and efficient cutting edge, it is easy to maintain and is suitable for both right-handed and left-handed users.

The blade is finished with a special polishing (« au gros ») that increase the cutting quality.

Quenching consists in suddenly cooling a blade brought to high temperature by immersion in water or in a specific oil. This allows to improve the steel quality and to increase the hardness.
It is supplemented by the tempering, that consists in heating the hardened steel again and cooling it slowly in order to make it more malleable and resistant to shocks and deformations.

The quenching quality plus the steel quality will give the knife’s cutting quality and the durability of the cutting edge.

It is measured in HRC (Rockwell hardness); 52HRC for the softer steels over 65HRC for the hardest steels.

A bolster requires additional manufacturing and/or finishing work which adds cost to the knife or cutlery piece while improving its balance, strength and style.

Several kind of bolsters exist on the market (fully forged, molded, added, welded, hollow…) more or less expensive, more or less usefull for the knife performances.

In GOYON-CHAZEAU collection, Brasserie range has no bolster and Avantage and Prestige ranges have fully forged bolsters (except Le Thiers Pirou Avantage line which is with added bolsters).

The thicker the steel plate the knife was cut from, the thicker the tang and the stronger the knife.

It exists several types of tang : partial tang, half tang, narrowing tang, stick tang, which occupy only part of the handle, and the full tang which occupy the whole handle (length and width).
A full tang gives quality, strength and balance to the piece , that’s why we have selected it for our Brasserie range, made with a cut tang of 2.5mm thick.

The material of the handle, its rarity, the care it needs to be shaped, play a major role in the cost of a knife or cutlery piece.

The impact of the assembly in the cost of the knife is due to the technique used (hot, by force, by nailing, by gluing, …), the machine or human time it will require, and the material it will require.

At GOYON-CHAZEAU we manually assemble our handles by nailing them with rivets, in 3 points.

It is the final finish done on the stainless steel part (brilliant, brushed, sandblasted …) on all or part of it.

The more the finishing stages, the more the finishing will be carried out in detail (back of the blades, back of the tang, between teeth of the forks, edges of the spoons…) the higher the cost will be.

Brilliant finish, also called « mirror », that we offer on GOYON-CHAZEAU’s article is the most successful stainless steel polishing.

These are elements that are not essential to the quality of the knife or cutlery piece, but which complement its aesthetics. Because they require material, time to work and finish, they have an impact on the cost.

Charges that the manufacturer will have to pay, cost of employment in the country, access to raw materials, and finally the standards to be met or not have a very significant impact on the cost of manufacturing a similar part.

French know-how and quality allow us, for the moment, to maintain a noticeable qualitative, safety and environmental lead over competition and foreign imports.

To better understand cutlery terms, read our CUTLERY GLOSSARY

And to decipher our ranges, go to the E-shop!