Opinel

Opinel is a French knife maker based in Chambéry in Savoie. In 1890 the 18-year-old Joseph Opinel designed the first Opinel No. 8, a simple folding pocket knife, and began producing it with modern machines. The company's address today is 508 boulevard Henry Bordeaux in Chambéry, where the buildings cover 5,000 square metres.

Features

• Pocket knives in the traditional numbered sizes, including the No. 8, plus slim folding knives and saws.
• The "Crowned Hand" mark, which Joseph Opinel chose in 1909, taken from the coat of arms of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne with a crown added as a reminder that Savoie was a duchy.
• The Virobloc locking ring, invented by Marcel Opinel in 1955, which locks the blade open; later versions can also lock it closed.
• Kitchen knives, flatware and food preparation knives, including the Parallèle and the Perpétue ranges.
• A private museum in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and a first Opinel store in Annecy (2017).

Limits

Opinel is built around simple, traditional knives rather than pliers-based multi-tools, so it is an alternative to a pocket knife rather than to a multi-tool.