Torvhaug Hand Forged 1095 Langes Messer with Ground Sharp Edge & Clipped Point | About 37 Inches Overall | Riveted Scale Grip and Lifetime Warranty | Collector Gift | RK-3032

The Torvhaug is a langes messer and it is sharp. The edge is ground and finished as a cutting edge, and the point is clipped, which is the angled false edge cut back from the spine that gives the messer its unmistakable profile. This piece is built for test cutting and for the collector who wants the real thing on the wall. It is not a sparring tool and it must never be used against another blade.

The hilt is the messer arrangement: a steel cross bar, wooden scales riveted through the flat of the tang with three brass rivets, and a blackened beak cap that curves back over the heel of the hand. The scales are bolted rather than glued to a hidden tang, which is the whole structural idea behind a messer and the reason these blades survived being used hard.

If you are choosing between a sharp and a trainer, read the messer guide and blunt and sharp training swords compared before you order. The blunt messers built for fencing sit in HEMA messers.

Specifications

Langes messer play from Lecküchner to the fencing schools

The messer is the sword the German speaking world carried when it was not carrying a sword. Legally it was a knife, made as a knife is made with scales riveted to a flat tang, and that distinction mattered a great deal in towns where blade laws were taken seriously. In the hand it is a single edged sword with a curved or clipped point and a full cutting length.

Johannes Lecküchner wrote the great work on it in 1482, an enormous illustrated treatise on the langes messer that runs to hundreds of plays. He borrows the structure of the longsword tradition, the master strikes, the winding, the displacements, and translates it all onto one hand and one edge. Later fight books from the Nuremberg and Augsburg circles keep the messer in the syllabus for another century.

What the sources ask of the blade is a clean single edge that bites without wedging, a point that will thrust, and a hilt that keeps the hand on the handle when a cut lands. This piece is built to those requirements and sharpened, so that a fencer who has learned the plays with a blunt can see what the geometry is actually for.

A ground edge on 1095 and the geometry of the clipped point

The blade is 1095 high carbon steel hardened to 54 to 58 HRC, the standard Ransack Viking treatment for a sharp. That hardness holds a cutting edge through a tatami mat or a rolled wet newspaper and takes a clean polish. It is deliberately not the steel used in our trainers. Spring steel is what a sparring blade needs because it bends and returns instead of taking a set or snapping under a hard bind, and 1095 at cutting hardness will do the opposite.

The clipped point is the messer signature and it is a real piece of engineering rather than decoration. Cutting the spine back at an angle near the tip does two things. It moves mass out of the last few inches so the blade recovers faster after a cut, and it puts a short false edge on the back so a rising cut from below has something to cut with. It also gives a point acute enough to thrust with, which a pure clipped sabre tip does not always manage.

This is a sharp and it is sold as one. It goes to adults aged 18 and over. Keep it away from other steel, keep it out of reach of children, and cut only into targets that are properly mounted. Test cutting with a sharp messer on an unstable stand is how people get hurt and how blades get bent.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the grip.

Engraving is cut in the United States after the messer lands in North Babylon. Runes and text are $19, a symbol is $39 and a family crest is $49. On a messer the wide flat just ahead of the cross is the natural place for a rune line, and the blackened beak cap takes a small symbol with a good contrast against the dark finish.

If you would rather have your own design than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. More on the engraving page.

Handling and balance

We publish no weight and no point of balance for this messer. Nothing in the photograph gives a scale and every one is finished by hand, so any number here would be invented. The honest description is the shape and where the steel sits.

A messer of this length carries its mass forward of the hand and that is exactly what it is for. The cut is the whole point of the design, and a blade that sits heavy toward the last third of its length is a blade that cuts without being driven. The beak cap at the back gives a little counterweight and, more usefully, a hard stop so the hand does not slide off under a hard draw cut.

The riveted scale grip fills the palm more than a leather wrapped round handle does. That is a feature of the messer form rather than a compromise, and it lets the hand index the edge by feel alone, which matters when the edge is this sharp.

Care

High carbon steel corrodes quickly and a bare edge shows it first. Wipe the blade down after handling, oil it lightly and do not leave fingerprints sitting on the flat, because the salt in them will etch a mark within days in a humid room.

The wooden scales want attention too. Do not soak them, do not leave the messer in a car in summer, and if the wood dries out a little oil on a cloth will bring it back. Check the three brass rivets now and then for movement. Storage, oiling and edge care are all covered in our care guide.

Made in the Czech Republic

Made by hand in the Czech Republic and imported by Ransack Viking. Nothing here is drop shipped out of an importer catalogue straight to a customer. Every one is checked for hilt tightness, pommel seating and blade straightness at our North Babylon, New York warehouse, and ships from there. Shipping in the United States is free, returns run for seven days, and the lifetime warranty against defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

Engraving is the only operation carried out in the United States, and it happens after the messer has arrived and been inspected.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand forged. It is not machine made, not cast and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page.

Scales are cut from real wood, so grain, figure and colour vary from one to the next. The clip at the point will sit at a slightly different angle, the brass rivets will show their own peen marks, and the blackening on the cap will vary in depth. The blade may run a little over or under the length quoted.

A defect is something else. A soft edge from a bad heat treat, a cracked scale, a rivet that works loose, a blade that bends and stays bent. Those are covered for as long as you own it, with no receipt and no expiry.

Frequently asked questions

Whether this messer is sharp

Yes. The edge is ground and finished as a cutting edge and the clipped point is sharp. It is sold to adults aged 18 and over and it is not a training piece.

Whether it can be used in sparring

No. It is 1095 at 54 to 58 HRC, which is cutting hardness. Do not bind it against another blade and do not use it in any paired drill.

What a clipped point is

The spine of the blade is cut back at an angle near the tip, leaving a short false edge on the back. It lightens the last few inches and sharpens the point at the same time.

Whether a messer counts as a sword

In law and in the period it was made as a knife, with scales riveted to a flat tang. In the hand it is a single edged sword and the fencing sources treat it as one.

Whether a scabbard is included

No. This ships as the messer only and we do not supply a scabbard with it.

What to cut with it

Tatami omote, rolled soaked newspaper or plastic bottles on a stable stand. Nothing hard, nothing metal and nothing that can throw the blade back at you.

What is in the box

• One Torvhaug langes messer, sharp, about 37 inches overall.
• Care and handling card.
• Lifetime warranty against defects in the forging, the grind, the heat treat and the fittings.
• Your engraving already cut, if you chose it at checkout.

Explore the range

The blunt messers for club work are in HEMA messers, and the curved single edged blades that follow them are in HEMA sabres. For two handed steel look at HEMA longswords, and for single handed cross hilts see HEMA arming swords. The full line is in the HEMA swords hub and the background sits in the guides hub.

Compare it with these

Worth setting next to this one: Molgarth langes messer, about 35 inches overall, Aurnvik langes messer, about 35 inches overall, Hallvarn sharp bauernwehr, about 24 inches overall, Ostrevak steel dussack, about 31 inches overall and Draugmar arming sword, about 38 inches overall.

Look through the HEMA messer category and the HEMA sword hub for the rest, then try the custom sword builder if you want something specific.