Pott - Perfection. Superb craftsmanship and extraordinary design.

The cutlery workshop

Carl Hugo Pott already was founded in 1904 in Solingen, the so-called knife-town (Klingenstadt) in which for 800 years the production of knives is located. Still today the cutlery companies Picard & Wielpütz, Carl Mertens, Paul Wirths and Zwilling J.A.Henckels are based in the small German town. The founder Carl Hugo Pott at first dealt in his of the workshop with the production of knife-blades of Damascus steel. With the entry of the son of the founder in 1932, Carl Pott, the family company changed to a cutlery manufacture.

The son applied decisive own

ideas, inspired by Bauhaus and the Deutschen Werkbund, into the father's company. At that time stylistically the flatware design had already nearly left behind the eclectic decorated style of the outgoing 19th century and the Jugendstil of the beginning of the 20th century. After his death in 1985 Carl Pott left behind comprehensive lifework in his style, the logical formal creation. Already in 1935 he designed the pattern with which which should founded all other success of Pott: The model 16 was honoured in 1937 on the world exhibition in Paris with the Diplom D’Honneur. Other awards followed for just 31 year-old Carl Pott and encouraged him in his effort for the New Objectivity. Today many pattern sketched by Carl Pott are to be found furthermore in the assortment of Pott and remain unmistakeably in the clear design quality. The craft skills of Carl Pott are testified by several master's certificates and not only as a designer, but also as a craftsman he was qualified to create cutleries with highest functionality.

In the course of his life his

work was internationally decorated with more than 700 awards. Over and over again Carl Pott has appointed famous designers to sketch cutleries for his company. He could win Hermann Gretsch for the model 81 in 1947/48, which beside his designs for Arzberg (Mod. In 1382) belongs to one of his prominent works. Wilhelm Wagenfeld sketched in 1950 the silver cutlery number 83 and Josef Hoffmann, co-founder of the Wiener Werkstatt and Deutscher Werkbund, the model 86. Hoffmann designed this piece of art in sterling silver in the 50ies with clear reminiscences to the expressive Art Nouveau, outstanding in the assortment of the manufacture. Also in the fifties the company C. H. Pott was able to supply the German Lufthansa, how Wolf Karnagel did with Wilkens 30 years later: Don Wallance - who sketched cutleries 10 years later also for Stelton - created the model 21 for the airline. Today as a testimonial of a perpetual chain of landmarks in the cutlery history the entire archive of the company Pott is to find in the museum of Solingen Deutsches Klingenmuseum. Also after the death of Carl Pott the manufacture and the production is continued as since beginning of the cutlery production in the company: Predominant is the artisanry and many individual production steps are necessary to produce a single cutlery part which carries the name Pott. In a global modern world it would seem almost antiquated, if the quality of the results of would not justify this expenditure.

A flatware of Pott is still a

product of handcraft, with some technical innovations or optimisations are no option not to diminish their quality. And also nothing has changed, when in 2006 the company after 102 years in family property was taken over from the family Seibel from Mettmann. The company Seibel was founded already in 1895 and in the 60ies named after his best known pattern in mono Metallwarenfabrik. Mono-a became the synonymous of design for everybody - and became the most successful German design. Today the productions of Mono and Pott are brought together. In the same working time in which a Pott knife is produced in many single production steps - the steel forged, blued, the surface brushed and the knives married afterwards - in this time in a factory on another continent a multiple of knives may be produced, however, a Pott knife simply needs these numerous operations. And that doesn't matter.

Unique in his surface with the

typical dark matting, the brushed knives, clearly in his design and straight in his material pure high-grade steel or massive sterling silver.