Laguiole Fontenille Pataud: 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 Laguiole Fontenille Pataud 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 Laguiole Fontenille Pataud?
Fontenille Pataud is one of the oldest and most respected workshops in Thiers. Its knives stand out through faultless execution, exact lines and a love of detail expressed in fine chasing, elegant contours and high grade steels. Tradition and innovation go hand in hand here, handle materials are chosen with care, and every piece connects centuries of craft with a living present.
What we look at on a knife by Laguiole Fontenille Pataud
Every forge has its signature. With Laguiole Fontenille Pataud it is the fine chasing, the exact lines and the steel quality by which this Thiers workshop is recognised. 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
The story begins in 1929, when Jeanne Fontenille Pataud took over the Cornillon cutlery works in the Rue de Paris in Thiers. A woman at the head of a cutlery workshop was anything but usual at the time. Under her direction came cutlery with handles of mother of pearl, ebony, amber and horn; after the Second World War scissors, razors and table knives were added. With around twenty staff the atelier was a regional centre of the trade.
In 1994 the manufactory was at risk, as the owner had no successor. Gilles Steinberg took over production in 1995 at the age of 28 and refocused it on hand made pocket knives. In 1997 he created the Gilles mark as a pledge that every knife is genuinely made by hand. By 1998 the house was among the first cutlers selling online, and in 2000 it received an international development prize from the French finance ministry. Since December 2018 Yann Delarboulas and Cécile Dissay have run the company.
Every Laguiole is made entirely by hand in France, with traditional filework on spring and bee. Young cutlers are trained alternately in the workshop and at the oldest cutlery school in Thiers. The range covers Laguiole knives with and without a lock, the Le Thiers line, Corsican patterns such as Vendetta and Sperone, and the well known Laguiole Magnum corkscrew. The logo, a compass, was registered as a mark by Gilbert Cornillon as early as 1918 and stood for traceability from the very beginning.
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)