Sensen

Scythes: the manufacture of scythes has been of great importance to Austrian ironworks since the Middle Ages. From the late 16^th century, iron has been beaten out by means of water-powered swage hammers. The numerous scythe manufacturers were organised in 11 guilds: Hainfeld, Waidhofen an der Ybbs, Kindberg, Übelbach, Rottenmann, Judenburg, Wolfsberg, Jenbach, Mattighofen, Freistadt and Kirchdorf/Micheldorf, the most important guild. In 1875, 2.2 million, in 1927 over 7.5 million scythes were manufactured by almost 2,000 employees in 16 plants; the majority of scythes were exported. However, production has sharply declined since then and in 1990 there were only two scythe-manufacturing plants left in Upper Austria.

Literature: F. Schröckenfux, Geschichte der österreichischen Sensen-Werke und deren Besitzer, 1975.