Tony Delciello, ‘Knife Sharpener Guy,’ Back in Town

If you can find him, perhaps you can hire Tony Delciello—and end up with the sharpest cutlery in town.

Delciello, 68, of Oak Park, is known throughout the Chicago suburbs as the “Knife Sharpener Guy,” or simply the “Knife Guy;” the past two weeks, he has been making his once-annual trips to the Lyons Township area.

He is a self-admitted relic from another era—one in which hoards of men canvassed the streets plying wares and services—as he pushes his bell-ringing cart from town to town, honing knifes, scissors and garden tools to a perfect edge.

A buck for a small blade. Two for a larger one. His feet pump the pedals of his distinctive red-and-green wagon, spinning its grindstone; his callused, practiced hands file down the cutting tools.

It’s a pastime, he declares. “I gotta do something!” Because he loves it? “Yes, believe it or not! I don’t need to do [it.] It’s something to do. I’m on the street, I meet a lot of interesting guys… American people, they’re nice people.”

But he has a perpetual lament as he walks the streets, far emptier than they once were.

“All my customers, they’re all dead!” he semi-jokes, pointing out that the garden-tending housewives who would bring him their shears have been largely replaced by landscapers. “There’s no one left. Everybody died. People, they’re not around no more… Everybody works nowadays.”

Those who do happen to catch him, however, are treated to a unique, quixotic and personal experience. (As he points out, you can see examples on YouTube.)

“I’ve seen him in the neighborhood, [but] it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him over here, so I figured I’d take advantage of it,” said La Grange’s Allison Piagnerelli while her kids watched Delciello in something resembling awe. “It’s pretty awesome. Wow, right?”

"I chase this man every year," added fellow La Grange resident Cathy Riebel, whose knives Delciello has sharpened so many times that they are noticeably worn down. "I've seen him and then drove to find him. He moves quickly." You need to listen for the bell [in the summer] so you know when he's coming by."

Tony Delciello came to America from the village of Pescolanciano, Italy in 1966 at the age of 21. He worked in a food plant, picking up the knife-sharpening trade on the side from fellow Italian friends and family.

Today, he works for about six months of the year, April to October, six days a week, travelling from the southern suburbs all the way up to the North Shore. He lives at his sister’s Oak Park home. He enjoys gambling and trading stock (his current investment: MGM.)

He has no protégé and no announcement of his schedule. If you catch him, you catch him.

It’s his wooden cart that does catch the attention of most any passerby, its anachronistic appearance a stark contrast to his surroundings. (The cart is made by a Villa Park carpenter; the wheels are Amish.)

But that cart is actually Delciello’s third, made out of necessity from his first, a century-old template, when his second cart (and his van) was ripped off by thieves in 2007

Amazingly, Delciello later found that cart while canvassing Beverly, after a customer mentioned a neighbor looking to unload a similar wagon. It still had Tony’s name emblazoned in big red letters across the top.

"[You] can't buy this machine anymore; no one sells it," Delciello points out.

Back in the day, though, you could. Many residents well remember a time even before Delciello’s, when men like him were a common sight, not a curiosity. Western Springs resident Nancy Murtaugh recalls growing up in the 1940s and frequently seeing the “Organ Grinder Man,” a black knife sharpener who she describes as having a cart just like Delciello’s, complete with “mournful” bell.

“We were always slightly frightened of these peddlers and my brother and I would hide when we heard them coming,” Murtaugh remembered, adding that local children would contrive to temporarily steal the man’s effects as a game. “The world has turned a few times since then. It has changed. And we have gotten older and, hopefully, wiser.”

Does it still have a place for Tony Delciello? In a chilly and blustery April, he hasn’t been doing barnburner business: just a couple dozen knives a day. But he continues to meet those nice and interesting people—one La Grange resident spoke to him in near-fluent Italian. He says he’ll do better in the summertime, and even if he doesn’t, he’ll still be out there for those people who do need his service.

After all, it’s not like he needs to do it. It’s a pastime.

La Grange Patch Editor Matthew Hendrickson provided reporting for this article.