Approximately 150 years ago there were nearly 200 scythe making enterprises in Austria alone. Some were quite small, employing perhaps less than a dozen men, with the average having on staff about 25 smiths and as many other sets of hands -- to make the charcoal, repair and/or make new tools and equipment, grow and cook the food to feed the crew etc. With the sources of what they needed relatively close by, they were rather self-reliant in those days as far as production was concerned. The marketing forces were another matter; with most of their products' users living hundreds of miles away, the early stages of what later became the widespread effects of globalization were already presenting a challenge...

Consequently, between that period and the early decades of the 20th century a large portion of the makers had to quit, while some expanded their workforce to 300 or even more. The technological innovations, such as electricity (initially their own water turbine-generated), natural gas-heated forges etc., enabled more blades per employee to be produced. At the pinnacle of Austria's career as a scythe exporting nation, nearly ten million blades were shipped beyond its borders in just one year. During that period most of Europe, (see exceptions below) including England and each of the Scandinavian countries had scythe industries of their own. Germany, Italy and Spain -- though less known internationally -- were examples of excellence in that regard, with the workmanship level on par with Austria's.

(It is highly probable that, at least on a relatively small scale, scythe blades were once made throughout much, if not all, of Europe. But there is nothing on record in the historical documents which I have been able to access, that scythe industry ever existed in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, Holland, Ireland and Iceland. The Swiss, though still today excelling as snath makers, both in joinery and design diversity, can't really claim scythe blade-making fame either. One brief attempt to set up a small factory was apparently made there, but led nowhere to speak of. The Czech and Slovak experience seem to have also been meager, and limited to the neighbouring monarchies setting up shops in what then were "their" territories. Romania's scythesmithing likewise never graduated to an industrial level. It is noteworthy, however, that their Gypsy blacksmiths may well have been the last in Europe to make truly hand-forged scythe blades. Referred to as "fist blades", their making did not employ the mechanically-driven trip hammer.
In Austria, for instance, this "slow and tiresome" method was abandoned soon after 1585, when one of their scythesmiths -- Konrad Eisvogel -- conceived how the water-powered "tail hammer", already then widely used in steel making, could help speed up the blade-forging process. Although one guild stubbornly adhered to the former tradition until 1615, the difference of about five-fold increase in daily output caused them to eventually yield to the innovation. Defying progress, the highly sought after Gypsy-made blades were still available in small numbers up until WWII! In this case it was not globalization, but rather communism that caused their "extinction".)