Opinel Oyster Knife

From the alpine workshop of the venerable Opinel company in France, an Oyster Knife exactingly crafted for the challenge of shucking oysters.  With a sturdy wooden handle and safety lock feature, this Oyster Knife has been produced to the exacting standards that have made the name Opinel synonymous with the highest quality cutlery.

The knife comes complete with a small informative booklet containing information about the various types of oysters and the correct method of shucking them.

4 5/8" folded, 7 1/4" extended. Blade measures 2 5/8".

The Opinel company was founded in 1895 by Joseph Opinel.  It all began with his now-iconic wooden handled pocket-knife, which has been manufactured ever since in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the Savoie region of France.  Originally sold as a working man's knife, an Opinel knife has become emblematic of French culture, with Pablo Picasso reportedly using one of the company's knives as a sculpting tool.

The construction of Joseph Opinel's famous pocket knife is very simple, consisting of only four components: the blade, the wooden handle, a metal band with a rivet on which the blade pivots, and a locking collar that holds the blade in place when the knife is open - preventing the blade from accidentally closing in use.

The Opinel knife has long been a feature of everyday French culture. In fact the word Opinel has even entered the French language, with its recent inclusion in the Collins–Robert French–English Dictionary. In 1985 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London published its “Good Design Guide”, a collection of the “100 most beautiful products in the world”. One of those products is the Opinel knife. It is also exhibited in New York's Museum of Modern Art as a masterpiece of design, alongside other industrial objects which have defied time. The simple but ingenious design, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century or more, is widely felt to have made the Opinel into a design classic.