Benjamin Kamon

Benjamin Kamon came to knives early, through his father's collection, and the formative habit was as much about understanding and maintaining an edge as it was about the object itself. That foundation carried into a deliberate professional path: he trained as both a machinist and a blacksmith, then spent years at the forge before committing fully to knife making. Since 2019 he has worked independently as Kamon Knives, based in Austria, producing in small numbers and refining a body of work that has quickly become one of the more recognisable signatures in the contemporary maker landscape.

His knives are forged from high-performance carbon steels — primarily 1.2519, 1.3520, and Apex Ultra — and the geometry, heat treatment and cutting feel are pursued with an obsessive focus. Water-cooled grinding and carefully judged distal taper let him push thinness without sacrificing edge stability, so the blades read as both precise and authoritative under the hand. Across the range he has developed an unmistakable visual language — Denty and Wave surface textures, kurouchi and Blackout oil-slick finishes, the Short-Neck Gyuto profile he introduced as one of his innovations, his signature torpedo end caps, and the removable takedown handle architecture that has become a hallmark, an industrial detail borrowed from hunting knives and reinterpreted for the kitchen. The decoration never overrides function: geometry first, identity second.

What sets Benjamin apart is the way that engineering rigour sits inside a strong, recognisable aesthetic — and the uniquely broad range across which he applies it. The Kamon catalogue spans clean, production-focused knives in his Gen3 line, MCx Design Studio collaborations, bespoke commissions, and elaborate one-off pieces worked in increasingly complex layered constructions — Go Mai, Shichi Mai, rich damascus cladding — and finished with unique materials including fluted moose antler with silver inlays, anodized titanium frame handles, hand-carved curly walnut, Masur birch, and cast silver handle work developed in collaboration with David Wolke. As a core MCx contributor, his blade work has paired with the handle architecture of Oliver Märtens on the 250mm Takedown releases, alongside collaborations with fellow European makers including Tobias Hangler and Martin Huber. Whether at the production end or the bench-made extreme, Benjamin's work is one of the cornerstones of the Collectors Selection.