A J Jordan 12″ SLIM Bullnose Butcher Hand Forged Double Shear Steel Persian Boxwood 1885-1926

Marked Jordan’s Best on Persian boxwood handle made in Sheffield England (1885-1926), made at the East India Works with Sheffield and made with double shear steel and Persian boxwood. Narrow bullnose like this are uncommon from A J Jordan compared to standard width and weight bullnose butcher knives, so this is a nice find. I suspect it was intended for fish butchery but cannot verify, it is not a wide knife sharpened in, note the smaller size of the handle. 

This knife had been sharpened in a bit requiring a thinning, in the process the ‘England; in AAA A J Jordan Sheffield England marking on blade has been lost. Dense and hard Persian boxwood handle is in great shape with no gaps or cracks, it has mellowed to a nice warm color and has a great smooth feel. 

Andrew Jackson Jordan was an American from St Louis who set up a knife manufacturing business in Sheffield (the East India works) and imported knives to the USA made at the East India Works and on contract for A J Jordan by other Sheffield manufacturers, this is a knife made at the East India Works with double shear steel and ‘seasoned Persian boxwood’

Double shear steel was a 19th and early 20th century steel that was made by case hardening bars of iron in ceramic boxes packed with charcoal, large numbers of these were heated for days on end at high temperatures and the resulting bars were broken up (it would break or shear rather than bend once carbon added hence ‘shear’ steel) and forged welded into a larger mass. This process was done twice on double shear steel creating a steel with a higher carbon content. 

This knife has been re-ground and thinned behind the edge on a large 3 foot diameter Japanese water stone wheel (kaiten mizu toishi) and then resurfaced with a medium fine finish, our take on an old style grinding and finishing technique. While the particular wheel used to refurbish this knife is typically used in Japanese knife making it is very similar to the old grinding wheels used to shape European and American hand ground cutlery. A convex face to a blade greatly increases a knife’s performance as there is less sticking as there is on a flat face and the blade does not get thick behind the edge nearly as fast as with a flat faced blade. Being that we are often working with old blades that need re-shaping and might have been rusted expect some minor imperfections, we try to give a fresh start to our re-ground blades with an eye towards their original grind style and keeping as much metal is needed on a blade when ever possible.