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Coltellerie Berti dal 1895
Coltellerie Berti: industry or craftsmanship.
Our choices in this direction are the outcome of an underlying philosophy, which has led Coltellerie Berti to
face the challenge of providing high quality work in
Italy, a heavily industrialized country with high labour
costs, not by using technology, but by applying a product culture based on tradition and manual skills, in
other words craftsmanship handed down from generation to generation.
In these days when the word “Craftsman” is being despoiled of its true and original meaning, Coltellerie Berti is a “Craftsmanship” company, because everybody
working there is a “Craftsman”: being craftsmen is substance and not form. This attitude has led us to abolish
division of labour, so that each of our knives is made
by a single person (Craftsman) in very small quantities.
The person who begins a knife therefore finishes it, by
himself, making it a unique item. Even though our intention would be to make knives according to the purest
knife making tradition of the Berti family, it has been
necessary to mechanise each working step in order to
avoid loss of quality in the finished product or offset
from traditional types. This way, we have managed to
produce high quality knives at acceptable prices. The
different work stages which can be mechanised without leaving any trace on the final product are those
involving preparation of the metal pieces, including the
first rough work on the blades. Whereas each knife is
mounted and finished, without any division of labour
and using totally manual procedures.
The value of a knife does not come only from its indispensable capacity to cut, but also from the pleasure for
touch and sight which comes from how surfaces have
been worked and the materials which have been used.
Many industrially manufactured knives cut very well,
but often their shapes and the materials used to make
them are chosen more because of the need to cut costs, use machinery and facilitate everyday use, than to
the need to make their use enjoyable. Coltellerie Berti
knives, with their functional limits which oblige us to
prefer washing by hand to using machines, and force
us to devote a little of our time every now and then
to caring for them, designed so we can appreciate the
cutting function they were made for, give us back the
pleasure of using an object which, to be appreciated,
must also be seen as living evidence of the great Italian
Knife Making Tradition.
Andrea Berti
Handmade. Made in Italy.