David Dauvillaire: a certificate for your knife
We examine your knife and enter it into the A.I.P.C.L., even if you bought it elsewhere
Videos about this forge
We visit the workshops ourselves and show how the work is done. One click opens the video on YouTube.
You own a knife by David Dauvillaire but did not buy it at original-laguiole.de? You can still have it entered into the A.I.P.C.L. A genuine knife from this forge stays a genuine knife, whichever counter it crossed.
Who is David Dauvillaire?
David Dauvillaire belongs to those makers where one senses how much thought lies behind every detail. A small workshop, perhaps less known than the great names, but with great responsibility: the finish at the highest level, the shape consistent, every knife individual. Whoever carries a Dauvillaire has a piece of handwork, ground and shaped with deliberation.
What we look at on a knife by David Dauvillaire
Every forge has its signature. With David Dauvillaire it is the finish at the highest level and the consistent shape that mark out this small workshop. That is exactly what allows a knife to be identified, and it is what we examine in your photographs. If a question remains, we go to the forge itself.
A portrait of the forge
David Dauvillaire was born in 1974 in Rodez, in the heart of the Aveyron and very close to the village of Laguiole. From 1991 he spent three years learning in the workshops of Laguiole, but factory work alone was not enough for him. While still an apprentice he set up a workshop of his own, where he rebuilt old Laguiole knives piece by piece. Nicolas Crocombette, who was cutler, sculptor and engraver in one person, shaped him deeply; he refined his engraving further in private lessons with the Belgian master engraver Roland Batiste.
For more than nineteen years he studied the Laguiole knife, over ten of them at Laguiole en Aubrac, where he worked on legendary series such as Concorde, France and Golden Gate. For more than a decade he has worked under his own name. Today he lives with his family on the Aubrac plateau in the small village of Lunet, with the workshop in his own house. His partner Yolande supports him, looking after customer relations and dispatch.
Everything is done by hand, with no industrial methods. Under the microscope, file and graver produce the fine engraving on triple bolsters that is his signature. For him the bee is not ornament but a sign of perseverance and love of good work; his bees are his own designs, often joined by figures such as mammoths or characters from Greek myth. Every piece is unique, and collectors around the world wait for them.
More about this forge
How it works
You order the examination. In the original-laguiole.de shop, for 10.00 euros, like a product. Then you upload photographs of your knife in your customer account: open and closed, the bee, the spine, the blade with the forge mark, and if available the receipt or packaging.
We examine it. We compare your knife with what we know from 30 years of trading with French forges, and when in doubt we ask the forge itself.
You get the result. If your knife is genuine it receives its own number, its page on aipcl.com and the certificate as a PDF. If it is not, we tell you that too.
What it costs
10.00 eurosExamining and registering one knife costs 10.00 euros.
If the examination shows that your knife does not come from a French forge, we refund the amount, of course. You pay only for a certificate you actually receive.
The examination is ordered in the original-laguiole.de shop. With the purchase you buy the examination, not the certificate; whether we issue it depends on the result of examining your photographs.
Order the examination (10.00 euros)