Quince Wood
Quince wood is used to make knife handles. It offers a range of rich, warm colors and a fine texture as well as excellent physical properties that make quince wood the perfect choice for creating exclusive knife handles.
Quince wood comes from the quince tree, a fruit tree that grows in the eastern Mediterranean (especially Greece and Turkey) and Southwest Asia (Iran). It is also cultivated in Central Europe. Quince trees are indigenous to the Caucasus region, where they were documented as early as 2000 BCE. In ancient times, they reached the Mediterranean and were brought to Western and Central Europe in the Middle Ages.
The quince tree got its name from the village of Kydonia on the island of Crete, which was a center of quince cultivation in the ancient world. Quince trees grow between four and eight meters tall. Processed quince wood has a rich color range from light yellow to deep reddish brown. It has a fine pattern and very small pores. Additionally, quince wood possesses a few physical properties desirable for making knife handles – it is hard and firm, yet supple and easy to process. Quince wood can be varnished, waxed, oiled and polished with great results. On the other hand, quince wood cracks easily. This means that a certain level of expertise is required to select the best pieces of lumber and that a certain level of care is required to keep items made from quince wood in good condition.
Thanks to its fine texture and warm colors, quince wood has been used for centuries to make high-quality products, especially furniture inlays, art and artisanal products as well as exclusive silverware and knife handles. Today, quince wood is in short supply and very precious.
