Dagger Knives

What makes a dagger a dagger

The double edge is the point of the thing. Grind both sides of a blade and you lose the thick spine that lets a single edged knife take a hammer blow or a hard prying load, and you gain a symmetrical taper that goes into material from either side. Every design decision on a dagger follows from that trade.

Because both edges are ground, the steel in the middle has to do the work a spine would normally do. That is why so many daggers carry a raised central ridge, called a midrib, running from the ricasso to the point. The midrib is a stiffener. It keeps a long thin blade from flexing and gives the cross section depth without adding width. Several pieces here use a sunk fuller either side of the rib instead, which does the same job and takes weight out.

Daggers also almost always have a guard. With no thick spine to index against and two live edges, a hand sliding forward on a thrust has nothing to stop it, so a crossguard or a guard plate is a functional part rather than decoration. On the smaller Damascus pieces here that job is done by a bolster instead.

The shapes in this collection

Five families cover almost everything on the page. Once you know which one you want, the rest is length, steel and handle material.

Celtic and Norse leaf daggers

The largest group. Broad double edged blades with a central ridge, a straight or arched steel crossguard, a leather or carved bone grip and a peened pommel. Sizes run 14 to 20 inches overall with 9 to 14 inches of blade. One Celtic piece in Damascus lists 14 inches overall on a 9 inch blade at about 11 oz, with a carved bone grip and a burgundy leather sheath with a steel throat. The 20 inch Norse piece uses a diamond section 1095 blade with a brazil nut pommel. These are the pieces most buyers come to this page for.

Roman pugio

The waisted Roman legionary dagger, and the oldest documented shape here. Both pugios carry a wide blade that narrows at the waist and swells again toward the point, with a raised midrib down the centre. One runs about 15 inches overall on a 10 inch blade with bronze fittings and a Greek key engraved guard plate. The other is about 16 inches overall on an 11 inch blade about two and a half inches at its widest, with brass collars, a turned ball pommel and a listed weight of about 1 lb 6 oz bare.

Spear point and ring hilted daggers

Narrow symmetrical points on turned and fluted steel grips, several with a full muzzle ring on one arm of the guard. Lengths run 14 to 15 inches overall with 9 to 10 inch blades, in both 1095 and Damascus, and listed weights sit near 1 lb 4 oz. The steel grip makes these heavier in the hand than a leather wrapped piece of the same length.

Damascus fire pattern daggers

The compact end of the collection. Blades of 4 to 8 inches on handles of 4 to 5 inches, with layer counts stated on the product page at 256 and 352, and hardness at 56 to 60 HRC depending on the billet. Handles run to camel bone with Damascus bolsters, olive wood, rosewood, stag and bull horn, and wood with dyed bone. These are the pieces that actually carry, and the ones most often bought as a gift.

Paired and set pieces

A few listings are sold as a set rather than a single blade. There is a matched pair of Damascus sai at about 19 inches each with 13 inch main tines, and a pair of rune etched chain knives supplied with two chains and two sheaths. Read the set contents line on the product page, because these are priced and shipped as a complete set.

Dagger shapes you will read about elsewhere

Search for daggers and three named historical patterns come up constantly. None of them is currently on this page, and it is worth knowing what they are and what here comes closest.

Stiletto

A very narrow blade of square, triangular or diamond section with almost no cutting edge, made in Italy from the late fifteenth century onward. It is a pure thrusting tool that would not slice bread. The nearest thing here is the spear point group, which keeps the narrow section but retains real edges.

Rondel

A late medieval dagger named for the two flat discs, one at the guard and one at the pommel, that trap the hand between them. The blade is long, stiff and often four sided. The discs let a gloved hand drive with the palm behind the pommel. Nothing here uses the disc hilt, though the diamond section Norse blade shares the same stiff cross section.

Dirk

The Scottish dirk, a long single edged blade on a carved wooden grip, often carried with a small knife and fork in the sheath. Despite the name it is not a true dagger, since it has one edge and a thick back. The long Norse and Celtic pieces here cover the same role on the belt.

Sizes and steel across the range

Every figure below is taken from the specification panel of a piece on this page. Blades are forged and ground by hand, so read the numbers as what to expect rather than as a guarantee to the millimetre.

One figure is worth reading carefully. Layer count is a description of how the billet was folded, not a measure of quality, and a 256 layer blade is not worse than a 352 layer blade. The hardness figure tells you more about how the piece will behave than the layer count ever will.

1095 and Damascus in a double edged blade

Two steels are presented as a house standard and no others. A small number of older listings state a different grade or hardness in their own specification table, and where they do, that table is the accurate answer for that piece.

Plain 1095 is a simple high carbon steel, hardened here to 54 to 58 HRC. It takes a very fine edge, sharpens quickly and forgives a beginner on a stone because you can feel the burr form. It rusts readily. A blade left wet overnight shows orange spotting by morning, and an oiled cloth prevents every bit of that.

Damascus here is 1095 and 15N20 forge welded in alternating layers, drawn out, folded and acid etched so the nickel bearing 15N20 shows as bright lines against darker 1095. Hardened to 58 to 60 HRC, it holds an edge longer and takes more work to bring back. Most of the billet is still 1095, so the etched pattern needs the same wipe and the same film of oil. Neither steel is better in the abstract. Take 1095 if the dagger will be used and sharpened often, and Damascus for the pattern and the edge retention on a piece that will be handled and cleaned rather than abused.

Handles, guards and fittings

Construction on this page splits two ways. The compact Damascus pieces are full tang, with the steel running the whole length and width of the handle and the scales pinned to it. The longer Celtic, Norse and Roman pieces use a narrower tang running through a shaped grip and peened over a pommel cap, which is the historically correct construction for those shapes and is what holds the guard, grip and pommel together as a stack under compression.

Handle materials behave differently. Camel bone and stag horn are the traditional choices and both should stay out of dry heat, since bone and horn shrink and can crack if left on a radiator or in a hot car. Rosewood is dense, oily and close grained, so it polishes up and shrugs off moisture. Olive wood is harder, paler and full of figure. Micarta is resin and canvas and is effectively waterproof. Leather over a shaped wooden core takes hand oil and a patina.

Fittings are steel, brass or bronze. Brass and bronze darken over time. A metal polish on a cloth brings them back in a minute, or leave them alone if you prefer the aged look.

Sharpening a double edge

A dagger takes twice the work of a knife, because there are two bevels to keep and they need to match. Set your angle on one side, work until you feel a burr along the whole edge, then turn the blade and do exactly the same on the other. If you rush one side you will roll the edge over rather than sharpen it.

Keep the midrib out of the way. On a blade with a raised central ridge, only the bevel should touch the stone, and lying the flat down will scuff the polish and round the ridge. A 1000 grit waterstone restores a working edge on 1095 in a few minutes and a 3000 grit polishes it. Damascus at 58 to 60 HRC takes longer on the coarse stone and holds the result longer.

Carry, sheaths and the rules where you live

Almost every fixed blade here ships with a leather sheath, several with a steel or brass throat and chape. The leather is stiff at first and softens to the shape of the blade over a few weeks. Never store a carbon steel blade in a damp sheath, because leather holds moisture against steel and that is the most common cause of rust on a piece that was otherwise looked after.

Carry rules in the United States vary by state and often by city, and daggers are treated more strictly than single edged knives in several of them. Some states restrict double edged blades specifically, regardless of length. Read our state by state summary before you clip anything to a belt. It is a summary rather than legal advice, and local ordinances can be stricter than state law.

Engraving and gifting

Most fixed blades here can be engraved after they arrive in the United States. Names, dates, rune lines and Norse symbols go onto the flat of the blade above the ricasso or onto the guard. Elder Futhark is a phonetic alphabet rather than a cipher, so a name is transliterated by sound, and there is no rune for the letter C.

Engraving is permanent and an engraved piece cannot be returned, so send the exact spelling and read it twice. A Damascus dagger with a date on the ricasso is one of the few gifts that neither wears out nor gets put in a drawer.

Where these daggers are made

Every blade on this page is made by hand in the Czech Republic. Finished pieces are imported to the United States, inspected by Ransack Viking in Memphis, Tennessee, and shipped from there, with engraving added after arrival. Small differences in grind, etch figure and handle colour between two daggers of the same name are normal, because two people made them on two different days.

Browse related categories

• Viking knives, the single edged Norse working blades
• Damascus knives in forge welded 1095 and 15N20
• Viking seax knives with a thick spine and one edge
• Short swords, where a long dagger stops being a dagger
• Bowie knives with long clip points and deep bellies
• Hunting knives for field dressing and skinning
• Kukri knives with forward curved chopping blades
• Leather sheaths and replacement scabbards

Guides worth reading first

• Types of daggers: stiletto, rondel, pugio and the rest
• Knife blade shapes and what each one is good at
• Full tang vs partial tang and when it matters
• Damascus vs high carbon steel: which blade should you buy
• Knife laws by state: a plain summary before you carry