[Daniel Parry]

Final follow-on on the UK smiths theme. Thanks to John for his intro to Tod of Todsstuff (website above).

As I said above although I'm not really a buyer of historical recreation arms, being a very keen cook I was in the market for a set of cooks knives, my old ones having got so worn over the years. I'm adding this reply just as an indication of Tod's quality of work, which presumably is the same for his historical medieval recreations. The set was one he'd made up already (all sets and knives are different apparently as he uses no patterns). Very pleased with them (photos below). The knives are attractive, extremely robust, cut like proper cook's knives (i.e. like razors), very well finished but with that nice hand-forged look about them and a good quality of carbon steel that takes the edge you need for cooking but still has a degree of rust/stain resistance. The leather case is beautiful and has internal seperate sheaths for each blade.

The price (in US$ about 470) was very reasonable in my opinion. A lot of hand-made larger cook's knives in Europe (of good quality) can be around $150-$350 (more if they're French artisan ones) for one knife alone. The set of four with the hand-tooled case was a very good price indeed considering the quality. Many years of good service expected from these (6 friends coming for dinner tonight so a good road-test) . So I assume his historical stuff is of a similar quality.

Daniel