#Origin

Place names on steel are regulated, not decorative. Solingen is protected by German federal law — the Solingenverordnung — which requires that the operations determining quality happen inside the district. Premana is a village in the Italian Alps that has ground scissors since the sixteenth century. The terms here explain what these names legally guarantee and, just as importantly, what they do not: origin is not a quality grade, a leather case may come from anywhere, and «German steel» is a different claim from «made in Solingen». Read the mark on the instrument rather than the label on the box — the longer version is in the journal, and the workshops we carry each have their own page.