A squirrel, a father, and a name worth keeping.
We didn’t choose a squirrel because squirrels are clever and industrious — though they are. We chose it because it was already ours: drawn by our founder’s father for his own business more than fifty years ago, and still painted on a wall in the middle of France.
A father’s workshop
In 1968, a 24-year-old named Daniel Sauvagnat— our founder’s father — opened a small abrasives workshop in Le Pont de Celles, a hamlet of Celles-sur-Durolle in the Puy-de-Dôme, a few kilometres from Thiers, the town that has forged France’s knives for six hundred years.
His business, Établissements Sauvagnat Fils, made the humble, essential things the cutlery trade runs on: grinding wheels, polishing compounds, and the sharpening stones that put an edge on a blade.
A squirrel built out of letters
Every workshop needs a mark, and Daniel gave his some quiet cleverness. Look closely and the squirrel is a monogram of his own name — its body spells Daniel, and the tail is the S of Sauvagnat.
- the back and legs together make the d
- the rounded legs are the a
- the two ears are the n
- the front paw, dotted by the eye, is the i
- the face is the e
- the straight back is the l
Fifty years, and counting
Businesses come and go. Établissements Sauvagnat Fils was eventually sold, renamed, and finally wound up in 2021. But the squirrel outlasted the company.
It’s painted on the gable of the house next door — the home that belonged to Daniel’s parents, our founder’s grandparents. Faded but unmistakable, it is still there today, watching the road go by.