Sin Rival Cutlery

Logotype at the store's front door (Oct 11th, 2011)

Versión en Español

It is quite possible, when seeing this entrance's initial image, that the reader may know exactly where this logo is located. The name “Sin Rival” certainly may sound known to a lot of natives of Havana, mostly to all of those transiting around Monte Street, and it can be something famous even for the non natives of the capital city of the country. The thing is that these two words contain a powerful history, because if we’re talking about implements of seaming and cooking, there was no other rival for the Sin Rival Cutlery.

In this case the logo in front of us has transcended in history, because even today it’s not unusual that someone mentions Sin Rival without remembering that it was a cutlery store, mainly because its neon sign highlighted it until more or less a decade ago. Its logo on the floor, a job made using red-colored terrazzo that stands out in the gray flooring, just in front of the access door of the store, have a sober design based in the typography that was the company’s hallmark. The same name with similar design can be seen also in the front of its entrance, and printed in the crystal above the door. And if any one has very good memory will remember the mentioned neon sign that this building had where the same logo was repeated.

Details of the store's entrance with name on top and on crystal (Apr 2nd, 2019)

Sin Rival was always famous. My grandmother, who was a dressmaker, as a child talked to me about the products of Sin Rival, and what you could find there that due to my age I couldn’t know. As his commercial name suggested it –Cuchillería Sin Rival – they used to sell knives and other related implements of cutlery; but also objects related with the arts of seaming, barber's shop, and even for the sport of fencing.

If we check a series of commercial ads from the decades of 1940 and 1950, we will see that behind the reception that this logo offered us on the floor, we could find in the inside of the commercial establishment everything from clippers for manicurist, combs and peeling machines, to implements for hunting and gardening tools. But not only that: in Sin Rival you could restore the nickel-plate of your utensils, as well as repair and sharpen them; everything with the guarantee that offered you a family business with a tradition of a lot of years.

Commercial ads from Diario de La Marina newspaper (left: 1949-50; right: 1956)

The passerby that today goes around the place maybe thinks that the store has a modern air in its structure. But don’t let yourself be fooled. Sin Rival is a hundred-years-old brand, that was founded on the beginnings of the past 20^th Century, and still today – out of Cuba – continues to be a company that stands out for its skilled work and takes great pride in the fact of being a family business that has been passed down from generation to generation. Precisely thanks to one of the great-grandchildren of the person who founded the business in Havana, I have been able to put together the history of Sin Rival, in an exchange of e-mails that contributed a lot of data. For this my infinite thanks to Mr. Alex García.

According to Alex the company was founded by his great-grandfather José María García Vásquez who, like many in that time, had been born in Spain, and certainly got to Cuba looking for prosperity. Sin Rival began its activities in 1903, and José María chose this commercial branch following his family’s tradition since they had a similar business in Spain. The selection of the commercial name also was its founder’s choice, who always loved the name and the meaning of those two words together. Under this name began a family-run company that was advertised as “the only house in Cuba specialized in the cutlery business trend”.

 

Commercial ads from Diario de La Marina newspaper (1954-1957)

Alex also says: “My grandfather Jose Antonio García Sr. was taken out of school at age 10 to start working at the store. His younger brothers also worked at the store and did the bookkeeping and others did deliveries. In 1948 my great grandfather died and my grandfather took over and ran it until he came to Miami and opened it in 1966. The company was always located there and we only had that one branch. We did have salesman that would travel all throughout Cuba”.

Sin Rival, as has already being said, was a company specialized in objects related to cutlery, knives, gardening, etc., and also had his own brand of tweezers, nippers, scissors and knives that were made in Germany and France. The objects manufactured in Germany, for example, were sold with the following printed trademark: Sin Rival, Made in Solingen, Germany. Sin Rival became so versatile that in their store you could buy even alarm clocks, as well as interesting manicure and seam sets with curious designs.

Ads from Diario de La Marina (1957) and Havana's Telephone guide (1959): section "Cutleries"

Although Alex affirms that his father remembers that the store was always in the same place and with the same image that we know today, the truth is that the commercial façade that still today we can appreciate, was a restoration made in 1956 by the designers of the ancient glassware shop “El Espejo” (The Mirror), according to an old commercial ad of the glass company where we can find, along with Sin Rival, the photos from other stores and commercial establishments that in that same year entrusted similar works.

In the first years of the 1960s, Sin Rival must have been through the same process of nationalization that happened to other similar business, and their proprietors, as has already being said, decided to leave Cuba and to settle in Miami. There, on March 19^th, 1966 the family-run company was reborn, again under the command of José Antonio García, who kept the tradition initiated more than half a century in ago Havana, in a very cosy place that has already celebrated 53 years in the specialized area of the finest kitchen cutlery, scissors, manicuring implements, as well as an ample professional assortment for barbers and hairdressers, and an experience matched by no other in the art of the sharpening and maintenance of those products.

 

The Sin Rival Cutlery building in Havana (Apr 2nd, 2019)

In the meantime the original site where Sin Rival was settled in Monte #453 very near the corner to Ángeles Street, in Center Havana, has survived as a store, passing through various specialties. Today is part of the governmental group known as Tiendas Panamericanas, selling cleaning products and home appliances. But if you are lucky maybe you can find some things that make you remember that the place, in former times, was the Mecca of the cutlery effects, and it didn’t have any rival.

Credits:

Sin Rival Cutlery in Miami (Photos courtesy of Alex García)

Special thanks to Mr. Alex García for the contributed data, and the approval to use some photos of the store in Miami. Sin Rival Cutlery can be visited in the address 1140 W. Flagler St. Miami, FL 33130, or you can contact with them through their web page or follow them in Facebook.