Ace of Spades — Six Rivet Knives from Friedrich Herder Abr. Sohn, Solingen
Friedr. Herder Abr. Sohn is one of the oldest names associated with the Solingen cutlery industry. The company traces its history to 1727, when Peter Herder had the “Schoppenass” — the Pik As, or Ace of Spades — entered in the register of the Solingen cutlers’ court.
The spade would become one of the most recognizable marks in Solingen cutlery, appearing on everything from kitchen and butcher knives to pocket knives and specialized working knives.
Among the more unusual Herder knives I’ve collected are a group of simple working knives with distinctive decorative rivets set into the handles. I currently have six examples, and although they clearly belong to the same general family, each one is different.
Some carry Herder’s famous spade motif directly in the handles. Others were made for cable work. One has an unusually long, narrow clip-point blade whose exact purpose I’m still trying to determine.
Together, they offer an interesting look at a type of Solingen working knife that can be documented in Herder’s range across several decades.
Six Herder Rivet Knives
The most immediately recognizable feature of these knives is the use of decorative rivets set into the handle covers.
Within the six knives in my collection there is quite a bit of variation.
Three are decorated with Herder’s Ace of Spades motif. Two were made for cable work. The sixth has a very unusual narrow clip-point blade unlike the more conventional blade forms seen on the other knives in the group.
The Spade Knives
Three of the six knives in my collection use Herder’s famous Ace of Spades / Pik As motif as part of the handle decoration.
One carries three spades, while the other two carry two.
All three were originally fitted with clip-point blades.
The three-spade knife is the largest of the group. Unfortunately, its original blade is broken, leaving only part of the blade behind.
One of the two-spade examples has also had its blade substantially altered. The remaining blade appears to have been deliberately reprofiled after damage.
The darker two-spade example is the most useful for understanding the original blade form because its clip-point profile remains essentially intact.
A Work Knife for the Soldier, the Farmer, and the Working Man
The earliest documented advertisement I have found for this type of knife is attributed to circa 1935 and shows a three-spade version of the pattern.
The heading makes the intended audience immediately clear:
“Soldat · Bauer · Arbeitsmann”— "Soldier · Farmer · Working Man."
Herder was clearly presenting this as a work knife.
The text describes it as a good, strong work knife designed to cut well, hold an edge, and withstand hard use. It emphasizes the quality of the steel and the strength of the blade, while also drawing attention to the three spade-shaped decorative fittings in the handle.
The knife shown in the advertisement is clearly related to the three-spade example in my collection, although the bolster design is different.
This advertisement is especially useful because it tells us not only what the knife looked like, but also how Herder positioned the pattern: as a hard-use work knife.
There is another detail on my own three-spade example that may also be significant.
My three-spade knife contains no brass anywhere in the handle, and the three spade-shaped decorative fittings are made from what appears to be aluminum.
By the late 1930s, Germany was already rationing non-ferrous metals and encouraging substitute materials, including measures to reduce copper use. That does not prove this knife dates from the wartime period, but the absence of brass is an interesting detail in that context.
The Pattern in the 1950s
The next important point in the timeline comes from a 1955 Friedr. Herder catalog, which I photographed during research at the Deutsches Klingenmuseum in Solingen.
That catalog documents the two-spade version of the pattern and confirms that this style of Herder work knife was part of the company’s range by the mid-1950s. This shows that the Spade pattern was still part of Herder’s range after the war.
Documented Again After 1995
A much later Herder catalog shows the pattern appearing again decades later.
In Herder’s modern online archive, a later catalog lists a closely related two-spade pocket knife as No. 0086-08,50.
That catalog gives the company’s address as Obenitterstraße 15–21, Solingen, the location Herder moved to in 1995. Since the company later moved again, this places the catalog in the 1995–2016 period.
The later knife is clearly part of the same family, but a few details have changed.
The blade marking appears to be different, with a different orientation of the spade mark, and it also includes the Don Carlos name. The bolster is different as well.
Other than those changes, the basic pattern remains remarkably consistent.
Taken together, these sources document the Spade rivet-knife pattern at widely separated points in Herder’s history.
A three-spade version appears in an advertisement attributed to circa 1935, the two-spade version is documented in 1955, and a closely related two-spade knife appears again in a catalog from the 1995–2016 period.
That gives the pattern a documented history spanning at least six decades, although the surviving catalogs do not establish that it remained in uninterrupted production throughout that entire period.
The Cable Knives
Two of the six knives were made for cable work.
Both use the same general blade form, with a cable-stripping notch at the base of the blade for removing insulation from wire, but there are small construction differences between them.
The darker-handled example has a smooth bolster, while the lighter-handled example has a threaded, or lined, bolster.
The smaller knife also lacks a nail nick.
These knives fit naturally into the same broader story suggested by the three-spade advertisement. Herder was making practical knives for specific jobs, and the same general handle format, with decorative rivets, could be adapted to different blade shapes and different kinds of work.
The Narrow Clip-Point Knife
The most unusual knife in the group is a single-blade example with an extremely long, narrow clip point.
The blade is noticeably slimmer than the clip-point blades on the Spade knives and terminates in a very fine point.
It immediately looks specialized.
One possibility is that it was a budding or gardening knife. Historical and modern horticultural knives exist with similarly narrow or sharply pointed blade profiles, although I have not found a direct match for this Herder knife.
I have also wondered whether it could have been intended for saddlery or other leather work, perhaps for seam-ripping or similarly precise cutting work.
Those possibilities are only my own speculation. I have not found documentary evidence connecting this particular blade shape to those trades.
I'm still not sure of its exact purpose.
I have not yet come across another blade profile close enough to this one to confidently give it a definite occupational name.
If anyone recognizes this blade shape or has an old Herder catalog showing this knife, let me know in the comments.
Six Knives, Six Variations
What I find most interesting about these knives is the amount of variation within what initially looks like a very simple pattern.
The handles share obvious family traits, but the knives themselves were clearly not a single standardized model.
There are different sizes, different blade profiles, different intended uses, two-spade and three-spade handle decorations, and different blade markings. Based on the catalog evidence, examples are also documented across many decades.
Even the Spade knives themselves changed over time.
The later catalog version retains the immediately recognizable two-spade layout while differing in details such as the bolster and blade marking.
For me, that is exactly what makes these relatively humble work knives worth documenting.
They were practical tools, built for people who expected to use them.
There are still questions left to answer.
With the Spade knives, I would particularly like to determine more precisely when the bolster and blade-marking changes seen in the later two-spade version occurred.
The narrow clip-point knife is another open question. Its intended use is still unclear, and I have yet to find a matching Herder catalog illustration.
For now, these six examples provide a small window into another corner of Solingen knife history that is still not particularly well documented.
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