Thomas Bell & Company
This traditional carving set – carving knife, fork, and sharpening ‘steel’ – is marked ‘Thomas Bell & Co, Sheffield, England’. The knife is likely made from shear steel; the sharpener is marked ‘cast steel’. The set (in possession of Dr Christine Castle, of Whitby) would probably have been made in the late nineteenth century or before the First World War.Shear steel – hand-forged from ‘cemented’ bar iron – was renowned for its cutting propertie....
