The sixties of the twentieth century was a crucial moment for the history of the knife making sector in Albacete, since it meant the stage of greater economic development of the sector and, in many cases, the transition from the traditional workshop to the factory. Almost all the important knife firms of that time saw how this transformation happened. However, while new factories were opening, others were disappearing. At the same time, Madrigueras expanded its products with innumerable workshops and reconverted the traditional manufacture of steelyard balances into the knife making.

On the other hand, the consolidation of the provincial fairs related to knife making and its conversion into fairs of national level, in 1966, favoured that development. Those fairs benefited to the own Fair of Albacete that, undoubtedly favoured by those events, acquired the declaration of Fair of National Tourist Interest.

The lens of the camera of the master photographer Jaime Belda witnessed this transformation of the sixties and a good part of those fragments of history remained in its plates. The present exhibition is configured exclusively with those photographs of Belda made almost all of them at that stage. This circumstance, however, has caused that only the workshops and factories portrayed by the photographer whose image has been found in his archives are present in the exhibition. There is no doubt that Belda made many other visits to other different workshops than those contemplated in this exhibition, but that testimony has not yet been recovered.