Trinxet (Mallorcan pocket knife)

What is

In Mallorca, the trinxet is a pocket knife with a highly curved blade, with a handle that is also curved and rotating. The handle rotates and covers the blade: it can be carried in your pocket without cutting yourself or tearing your clothes (DCVB, Majorcan meaning).

Other meanings of the DCVB, so as not to confuse:

• Trinxet de sabater (Berguedà, Igualada, Conca de Tremp): the shoemaker's blade. It is not the Mallorcan one. See eines de sabater .
• Manacor: each of the two cutting irons of the iron plow, on the sides of the fence, to cut grass. See jou i arada .

How is

• Short and very curved blade (like a beak), interior edge.
• Curved handle that rotates on an axis and covers the blade.
• Measurements and materials of the handle: (to verify in museum pieces).

How is fa

• Ganiveteria craft: blade forging, tempering, assembly of the handle with pin.
• Current Mallorcan knife workshop: Ganivets Campins (Consell) . If they make trinxets: (per verify).

Com s'usa

• Knife for everything: cutting bread and companatge, ropes, grafts, fruits.
• From the field to the pocket: always on top.
• Mallorcan saying: menjar pa i trinxet = eat bread alone, without anything else.

Vocabulary

• trinxet — curved pocket knife (Mall.).
• menjar pa i trinxet — eat plain bread (Mall.).
• nas de trinxet — very curved nose (Mall., Men.). There is a popular song: "Mestre Miquel, vós teniu / aqueix nas com un trinxet."
• have more desire than a trinxet nou - be very hungry (Pollença).
• trinxet (fig., Manacor) — selfish person, who wants everything for himself.
• trinxet (arada, Manacor) — side blade of the iron plow.

History

• 15th century: Nebrija already translates "trinxet de sabater" (Catalan meaning of shoemaker).
• 19th century: in L'Ignorància (Mallorca) "es trinxet" goes within the character's talec.
• Period of decline: (to be verified); the industrial knife replaces it.

On veure'n

• Museum of Mallorca, ethnological section (Wall) (to check if there are trinxets).
• Private collections and antique dealers.

Why is it design

• Safety through shape: the curved and rotating handle is the sheath.
• Curved blade for cutting by pulling towards one (graft, rope, fruit).
• Object with so much presence that it gave sayings, nicknames and a song.

For the project

• Strong candidate for reissue: the trinxet as its own Majorcan pocket knife, compared to the generic souvenir pocket knife. Propose to Ganivets Campins a prototype with an olive handle.
• Find an old trinxet to measure and draw.

Sources

• dcvb.iec.cat/results.asp?Word=trinxet

Working text from the Disseny Indígena knowledge base, machine-translated from Spanish.

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