Just a few times an image of a community is connected to an art product, the city of Albacete is represented by the cutlery industry and many are the local and foreign writers that had been doing echo of this inseparable union.
It was 25 years ago when it was still possible to see pocket knife sellers with a wide variety . They used to carry them to train, buses in order to offer this merchandise to the travellers, today this ancestral image had disappeared.
Such a tremendous influence had this pocket knifes that people form Albacete still keep the tradition of not given it as a gift, but selling it in a symbolic prize because otherwise their friendship can be cut.
Some authors like Hermosinio Parrilla in 1765 or Merino
Alvarez, in 1915, or Rodriguez Lorente, in 1967 had affirmed without
showing their sources which they had been based, that this activity
was a heritage from the Muslims, some stylistic and iconography characters
in the pieces and many documents seem to show it like that.
It is also said that Chinchilla was one of those Islamic important characters
that influenced on it.
The first obtained news are very scarce, they date from the XV century and give the impression that the cutting activity in Albacete didn’t have relevance yet.
From the XVV century we have a few references as
well, but some of them can show certain development and form this time
we have the most ancient samples some of them are of them are tongs
made by an artisan called Torres in 1573 and some other samples like
blades for writing area which belonged to Rico and Sinobas collection.
On the second half of that century we already have documented testimonies
with names of many people form Albacete.
There are many testimonies form the XVII century and many pieces dated from the last third of the century which means in that time without any cause Albacete already counted with an outstanding and consolidated knife quality as well as pocket knives, blades for writing and dagger industry.
The 90% of this workshops were located on Zapateros street and a small group, 16% of the registered cutters in Puerta de Chinchilla (door of Chinchilla) .
The location and the names of many cutters of this village are know now thanks to investigations and research made by Martinez del Peral , among this workers there were some outstanding ones like Alcalde Arias, Benìtez Garcìa, Gomèz, Martìnez, Montero, Torres, Vicèn Pèrez and Ximènez.
The document testimonies as well as the pieces of work were already plenty on the XVIII century, this is for certain a splendid time for the cutlery industry form Albacete, even when the restrictive legislation affected in a big part the production became plentiful through the century, besides the gremial system started going down and very famous population in this activity like Toledo were involved in a big crisis. Only the workshops of some Catalonian centres and form Albacete kept a high productive and artistic level.
In 1765 when Hermosino Parrilla compared the pieces of both zones, describes that all the pieces from Albacete are curious and excellent it was so good that in LO FUME they tied the pieces from Barcelona, but in the grading process the pieces for Albacete were superior.
The document contributions from Martìnez
del Peral allow us to know that the registration of workshops diversified
in relation to the past century, it means they were not located as central
as before: Zapateros street. With a 32% of the registrations continued
as the central part of it, but this zones as the surrounding ones lost
influence in the village because only 40% of the Menestrales were left.
On the other Hand La Puerto de Chinchilla area not only kept its importance,
but also expanded through many limiting streets.
By the end of the century around 18 professional cutters were still working. Trough the century we can find excellent art workers some of them already mentioned before and some new like: Arcos, Castillejos, Cortes, Garixo, Griñan, Leon, Lòpez, Munera, Romero, sevilla and Sierra.
In the XIX century the testimonies said the cutting history form Albacete was known in all Spain and in different places in Europe, related to this are many economical informs, manuals, dictionaries, traveller books of that time in them was possible to find the first data of production usually contradictory, the information was completely unknown for earlier periods.
It is considered important to mention three significant characteristics for that century, the celebrity and considerable production that the cutlery industry form Albacete had reached in spite of the serious commercial confrontation of foreing productions which invaded the spanish territory and the retrictions that a rigurous legislation prohibited, impossed on the other hand the unexistent reference in sources related to blades for writing (cuchillas de escribanìa), which matches the well preserve pieces circunstances which lead us to think that this explendid blades for writing were not made anymore since the beginning of the century ? and finally the last characteristic was the implantation of serial industrial procedures.
In this century is still noticeable the progressive
spreading of workers from the west side of the village, later in 1847
65% of the cutlers, and 40 years later in 1887 a small neighborhood
called San Josè which was located in the laready mentioned zone
gathered 60% of the forges; only one street called Santa Quiteria gathered
20% of the population which included the name of 58 people, all of them
were men whose profession was cutling industry.
At the end of the XIX century, the cutling industry sector had considerable difficulties to sell their products and with that technique began the recently cocluded XX century. Information that shows biography and documentation are frecuently contradictory perhaps it was due to the reason that a coca was the one collected by the official estadistic information especially the one with contributory reasons and was for these reason they were elaborated in such a criteria and conditions, and another one totally different was a real situation. The most outstanding factories durign this time were the ones that belonged to justo Arcos Aroca, lopèz y Companìa, Sanchèz brothers, Juaquin Zafrilla and the industry, some of them had already incorporated the electril motor.
A document of 1908 shows the process of transformation that had been produced in the cutler sector of the city with the polarization of this document small factories, and wrokshops as well as the big ones has a trnsformation from handmade process to a complete industrialized one, with this industrial pattern the 2 first decades of the century began, many cutlers were flattered by this situation, for this population all of this changes meant the first war world, these cahracteristics were perserved until the 50`s, in this period appears a business man who was ready to invest and risk the mercantil industrial and finacial projects.
In 1925 12 new factories began to work pocket knives, knives as well as small workshops, around 400 workers used to produce more than 30,000 dozen of pocket knives.
In 1930 Sànchez Sànchez mentioned that
the 14 main cutling industries employeed 434 workers and 8 of them had
a production that went
over 100 dozens anually , then 4 of them had a production of 150 dozen
of pieces each week.
The total capacity of the group was 72,000 dozens anually, but later the lack of demand limited the production to 40,000.
During the 50`s durinng the Spanish conflict, appeared a very noticeable crisis mainly between 1955 and 1959 only three workshops had more than 10 workers and only one had more 15, on thi also affected the contradictory legislation because in 1945 a new lwa was published , that still remains today , to forbid the pocket knives which tip blades goes 11 centimeters. New stormen appeared and multiplied their provided material to the small shops and later they also brought their production, this was a great adventage in relation to the factories because this storemen didn`t have social expenses.
The small shops began to work by personal deliver to costumers, this allowed them to reduce expenses.
Their job was mainly made by hand and completed pieces theri job with complementary pieces they got from workers.
These coming and goings form some workshops to other ones, was so noticeablem, that was possible to see apprentices leaving and picking things in baskets which were carried on their bikes, this situation became a characteristical city issue .
Later the development od 3 or 4 firms, which were supported by the national fair of cutling industry in 1965, and later for the ones that appeared, impulse industry again which began to look for the new markets.
In 1971, around 100 small workshops worked in connection with 5 more outstanding firms that led the process of 14 f them were in Albacete and was in Madrigueras.
In 1975 existed 74 cutling industries with 500 workers , 40 of them were sort of familiar , since then factories began to spread, reaching a production of more than 5`500,000 units , small parts of them were exported outside the country , it was just 1.5 % form the total value.
This industry had great importance in the national
sphere because Albacete and Cuidad Real had 58% of the total in all
the registered firms in all the nation.
During the consecutive years many firms modernized eventhough this process was irregualr originated in causes of different nature, this transformation also polarized some mechanicalized and serial factories which had a production of pocket knives, cutlery etc. Other small workshops where the handmade process still existed were also part of the transformation , (this small workshop pieces gave artistic prestige to the city). Yet legal restrictions appeared again and in 1981 new norms forbid some sort of pocket knives, this was a negative point for the industrial goals, yet the sector went through all of this obstacles getting in action their characteristic qualities, effort, constancy and imagination.
Today there are 70 firms , they employ over 2,000 people and produce about 10 thousand million of pesetas anually, without counting on the auxiliary industries , from them 2,500 are form exportation.
During the last quarter of the last century, most of this sort of business had been going down or leaving these traditional zones, producing another transformation in cutling industry; this fact originated a new concentration now only factories, mot of them are located by the industrial Polygon “Campollano”.
New energy comes form the cutlers of Albacete, the creation FUDECU is a practical sample, and a result of its activity is the creation of the school fo cutling with this as the tradition of the masters of the old times used to say when they templated the blades, “ buen temple abremos si dios quiere” a proveb.
The artistic cutling industry is by now practiced
by a few cutling masters, however their creation reach great quality
and beauty.
