Classic Laguiole Knives

Cattle bone, deer antler or turquoise

Cattle bone, the old-school pocketknife handle, is off-white and smooth, and on these knives it comes polished to a bright shine. Deer antler is real bone that deer grow and shed, with tones ranging from cream to brown, polished as well. Turquoise is a stone, sky blue to blue-green and often webbed with darker matrix, and it gets a high shine. Prefer wood in your hand? The range offers many species, a lot of them satin-finished so the grain stays soft under your thumb. No two natural handles match exactly, so yours will have its own color and markings.

A traditional French knife, plain or with a corkscrew

Most of these knives have the outline of a traditional French knife: a slender, slightly curved handle and a blade that tucks away inside it. Some models stop there, while others add a corkscrew that folds into the same handle, so the bottle of red at dinner is covered too. The Crocus models have a rounder, fuller handle, for anyone who likes more shape in the hand, and on the twisted models the handle is shaped as a spiral, cut from a single solid block. To see what defines the shape in more detail, read Classic Laguiole pocket knife.

Satin or polished: the finish follows the handle

On a classic folding knife from Laguiole en Aubrac, the finish is chosen to suit the handle material. A good share of the woods carry a satin finish, which keeps them soft-looking and natural. Polish goes on bone, antler, horn and stone, so they catch the light every time you take the knife out of your pocket. Neither is better. It's a matter of taste: satin reads quiet and outdoorsy, polished leans toward a dressier look. If you're torn between two handles, compare their finishes first and the decision usually gets easier. For a side-by-side look at more materials, see Knife Handle Materials.

Classic Laguiole knife questions

What is a gentleman's knife?

It's a slim, good-looking folding knife, compact enough for a dress-pants pocket and discreet enough to use at the office without raising eyebrows. It usually has a natural handle and a clean, understated shape. A classic Laguiole fits that description well: it's handmade in France by Laguiole en Aubrac, with a slender curved handle in materials such as bone, antler, stone or wood.

Which knife handle material is best?

It depends on the look and feel you want. Wood feels warm to hold, bone and antler give an old-school look, and a stone such as turquoise brings color and shine. On these Laguiole en Aubrac knives, each material gets the finish that suits it, satin or polished, so the best handle is simply the one you'll enjoy picking up every day.

Where does turquoise come from?

Turquoise forms where water seeps through copper-bearing rock in dry regions. It has been mined in Iran, China and the American Southwest, Arizona and Nevada among them, and the copper and iron it contains give it shades from sky blue to green. On a classic Laguiole, turquoise is used as a polished stone handle, a bold splash of color on a traditional French shape.

Care instructions arrive along with your knife. Hand-wash it, give it a quick dry and never load it in a dishwasher, no matter which handle you pick.