Pirge (Yeşilyayla Cutting Tools)

Pirge is the trading name of Yeşilyayla Cutting Tools, a family-run knife manufacturer in Bursa that the company states has operated continuously since 1879 and is now in its fifth generation of family ownership — making it, by its own account, one of the oldest still-operating cutlery houses in Turkey. The factory sits in the Kestel Organized Industrial Zone outside Bursa, a city the company's own materials and independent reporting both identify as one of Turkey's historic centers for knife production alongside Sivas, Gaziantep and Denizli.

Unlike the smaller ateliers more typical of this registry, Pirge operates at genuine industrial scale — CNC-equipped production lines turning out chef's, santoku, butcher and other professional kitchen knives across several product tiers, supplying both home cooks and commercial kitchens. The company's own site does not make Damascus-steel claims for its core range, which this listing treats as a point in its favor given how loosely that term gets used elsewhere in Turkish knife marketing; Pirge instead emphasizes conventional cutlery steels and five generations of continuous production as its credential.

It is included here specifically as a verifiable, currently operating heritage manufacturer rather than a boutique bladesmith — a real 1879-founded factory still run by the founding family, rather than a modern brand borrowing Bursa's historic reputation without the underlying continuity.