Victorinox AG - 19th-Century Alpine Origins

19th-Century Alpine Origins

Carl Elsener was born in 1860 to Balthasar Elsener-Ott, one of a long line of haberdashers in Zug, Switzerland. Instead of taking up hats, Elsener learned the craft of knife-making and apprenticed in Paris and Tuttlingen, Germany, where he specialized in surgical quality instruments and razors. Elsener began making knives for himself on January 1, 1884, in Ibach, south of Geneva in the pastoral canton of Schwyz, the birthplace of the Swiss Confederation. A former mill on the Tobelach River (Tobel Stream) housed Elsener's first workshop. The first Swiss Army knives were reproductions of pocket knives mass-produced in Soligen, Germany. A blade, punch, can opener, and screwdriver folded into the knife's handle. Elsener began making them for the Swiss Army in 1891, after organizing the Swiss Cutlery Guild of 37 craftsmen in order to ease the district's severe employment deficit, which was forcing its agricultural labor base to seek greener pastures in foreign lands.

Elsener was not the only knife maker granted a contract. Although the Fabrique nationale d'armes in Bern had turned down the chance to supply pocket knives for the army, the Forges de Vallorbe was another early supplier. Around the dawn of the 20th century, Paul Boechat & Cie (based in the Francophone Jura canton), later to become Wenger S.A., also became a supplier, giving rise to decades of apparently contradictory claims of authenticity from the rival manufacturers. The Swiss government would continue to maintain the right of both of these two companies to manufacture official Swiss Army knives.

Many variations of the original Soldier's Knife ensued: farmers, students, and cadets alike could have their own namesake folding assortment of tools. Elsener's stroke of genius came when he whittled down the original knife's clunky design, adding two new features for the benefit of officers, who unlike enlistees typically had to buy their own knives. A small, sharp "erasing" blade was useful for scraping off mistakes in paperwork handwritten by pen. A corkscrew helped enhance the officers' dining and socializing. The six blades required only two springs. The "Offiziersmesser," the official knife of the Swiss Army, was registered for trademark protection on June 12, 1897. When later offered for sale to civilians, the knives sported bright red handles to aid their visibility in snow. The original Army models were housed simply in a metal case.

The company's tinkering did not end with the Officer's Knife. Its success spawned knives with various additional appendages, including a saw, scissors, tweezers, and magnifying glass. The Swiss Champ performed 30 different functions. The 24-tool "Champion" has been displayed in New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Staatliches Museum fur Angewandte Kunst in Munich as a pinnacle of product design. In the 1990s, it retailed for about $90; the six-blade Classic sold for $18.

The company began using a Swiss White Cross to identify its wares in 1909. Elsener dubbed the line with the trademark "Victoria" in honor of his mother, who died the same year. The -inox suffix was attached in 1921, a designation for the stainless steel newly introduced into the knives' production. In the 1920s, the field of craftsmen supplying pocket knives to the Swiss Army was thinned to only Victorinox and Wenger.