Odd knife ?

[Bob Giddings]

At a gun show recently I spied an odd tool sitting in a pile of junk.
It was a sort of knife with a plain wooden handle about 4 inches long.
The blade was about 1/2 inch wide, about 1 inch long and shaped like the
spade in a deck of cards. Some scrollwork, not really sharp. I thought
it was some kind of bleeder, but the guy called it an "old fashioned
eraser" which was used to scrape ink off thick paper when you made a
mistake with a nib or a quill pen.

I wish I had discussed price with him. This is one of those things that
scabbles around in the back of your mind after it's too late to do
anything about it. Does anyone know about these? Is his story
plausible?

[Bernard R. Levine]

I don't know about plausible, but it IS correct. See page 496 of
Levine's Guide to Knives and Their Values for pictures of several
styles of eraser. When new, or properly maintained, these are razor
sharp.
There is a MUCH larger knife with the same "spade"-shape to the
blade, and a round handle that looks a bit like a trailer hitch. It is
for breaking parmesan cheese into chunks.

BRL...
http://pweb.netcom.com/~brlevine/books-k.htm
http://www.knife-expert.com/

[Bob Giddings]

Mr. Levine, I stand in awe at your erudition. There is no end to the
knowing of knives. The idea that someone engineered a special knife
particularly for parmesan cheese!! I am speechless.

Many thanks,
Bob

[chris kelly]

And, if you say, buy your parmasan cheese in Italy on vacation, the
often throw in one of these parmesan cheese knives for free. The
are more of a 'parmesan tool' than a knife, but still qualify.

Chris

[Tony Deacon]

Bernard R. Levine wrote in message <3831B2F3...@ix.netcom.com>...

> There is a MUCH larger knife with the same "spade"-shape to the
>blade, and a round handle that looks a bit like a trailer hitch. It is
>for breaking parmesan cheese into chunks.
>

I have two Parmesan cheese knives. Neither is a completely symmetrical
'spade' shape. There is a little more belly on one side of each of these
blades: the edges that do the cutting. Typically, these knives are not very
sharp.

Regards,
Tony Deacon

[Ron Ruppé]

I have tried to make several Parmesan Cheese knives. They seem to start out
alright if you use a good aged, sharp bit of Parmesan, but they don't hold an
edge very well un-heat treated and seem to turn in to some sort of "Italian
fondue" during heat treat!

Gen. Ron Knife Maker