Anybody Heard of Zanger Icel Portugal?

[redsquid2]

Since I got back into knife making a couple years ago, I started noticing more detail about knives. Yesterday I noticed that one of my kitchen knives had a distal taper. That shocked me. It also shocked me that I had not noticed it before. Grinds looked pretty nice, too. It keeps a decent edge, probably better than my Chicago Cutlery chef's knife. It's a paring knife. It has a plastic handle, and I paid maybe $6 or $7 for it, back in the 1990's.

The makers mark is "Zanger Icel Stainless Portugal." Decent knife. Anybody else have one?

Thanks.

 

[franzb69]

the portuguese have always made good knives. that's all i can share.

 

[kalaeb]

Heard of them, yes, never used one though and have not seen any reviews.

 

[Sidehill Gouger]

Have used a paring knife from them for about as long you seem to have. Nothing bad to say about it, just a well made commercial food prep blade.

 

[everydaybaker]

I'm not a knife expert but I have a Zanger Icel slicing knife that was given to me by my dad. He got it from a man he knew that used it working at a meat packing plant. I've had the knife for more than 20 years and is one of the knives I depend on for slicing large meats - hams, briskets, rib roasts. Its not like any other I've seen but is very thin with a blade 1" high and just shy of 11 1/4" long with a round tip. It beautifully slices like a hot knife through butter. I recently had it professionally sharpened after my 20 years of use and now its amazing great this knife is. Wondering what other knives they make.

 

[redsquid2]

I did a lot of online searching, and I only found a few of their knives on Amazon, and one retailer in Australia.

I bought mine several years ago, here in Chicago.

 

[chugokujin]

I saw a set of those in a Marshall's store here. While I didn't pick those, I did buy 2 other 8" chefs knives made by a company called IVO from Portugal for $20each.
The ones I purchased are from the Asian inspired line with Wa style poly handles and are made of x55crmov14, the same as Henckels and others. I liked
the heft of it so much, I ended up buying the two on the rack. They aren't lasers for sure (which I have quite a few), but they are very hearty knives meant
to manhandled. Edge holding is decent and comparable to other German knives, but a bigger bargain for sure. These are also forged and have bolsters as well.

 

[caleb31]

good knives Icel are decent user-friendly knives .

 

[John A. Larsen]

Not sure if it is a Icel paring knife, but i got a nice wooden handled paring knife from Lee Valley, mainly because it was made in Portugal, and I did not have a Portuguese made knife. It has a thin blade that sharpens up nicely. John

 

[gbp_io]

I have used a set of four Zanger-Icel (Portugal) knives in the kitchen since 1982: chef, carving, bread and fruit knives. They were a gift in an anonymous cardboard box. I only know the brand because the carving knife has a faint but visible logo. On one off the knives I can see where the logo was but it is now unreadable. The other two no longer have any brand identification. Not surprising as they have been in constant use for 40 years. The handles are a very durable brown wood with visible grain.