Olivespire Hand Forged Damascus Dagger Knife with Olive Wood Handle and Damascus Fittings & Leather Sheath | Collector Display Gift | RK-534

This Olivespire is a working dagger knife rather than a drawer piece. The blade is fire pattern Damascus, double edged and 5.5 inches long, the handle is olive wood with hand forged Damascus fittings, and the whole thing runs 10 inches overall with a 4.5 inch grip. It arrives with an edge on both sides, ready to cut. Where this shape sits among the others is set out in dagger shapes explained.

The dagger is the oldest blade shape there is and the only one that was never a tool first. Everything else in a knife catalogue started as something for skinning, carving, chopping or eating and picked up a fighting role later. A double edged, symmetrical, centrally pointed blade has no domestic job at all. That is why medieval sources treat daggers separately, and why the rondel dagger of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was built with a stiff diamond section and almost no cutting bevel: it existed to find the gaps in plate armour, not to slice bread. What survives into a modern dagger like this one is that stiffness and that symmetry.

The Olivespire is forged and finished in the Czech Republic, and it ships with the fitted leather sheath shown, with free shipping inside the United States.

Specifications

Why a symmetrical blade is the hardest thing in the shop

Grind a drop point badly and it still works. The spine covers a multitude of sins, and if the bevel wanders half a millimetre nobody will ever know. A dagger gives you nowhere to hide. Four bevels have to be ground, two on each face, and they all have to meet on a centreline that runs dead straight from the ricasso to the point. If the smith takes too much off the top left bevel, the tip drifts down and the only fix is to regrind the whole blade smaller or start again.

That is why double edged work is the test people use to judge a forge. It is also why an honest dagger costs more than a single edged knife of the same size and steel. The other thing to look for is cross section. A dagger ground flat on both faces is thin and fragile at the point. This one keeps a shallow diamond through the middle, which puts a spine of thicker steel down the centreline and lets the point stay stiff without making the edges blunt and wedge like.

Why Damascus and not stainless

Damascus here means 1095 high carbon and 15N20 nickel steel forge welded into one billet, folded, drawn out and etched, hardened to 58 to 60 HRC. Against a soft stainless blade you get a harder edge, longer working life and a genuinely finer point, and the pattern runs through the steel so it appears on every one of the four bevels rather than sitting on the surface. Look at where the bevels meet on this piece: the pattern turns with the grind, which is the giveaway that the layers are real.

The cost is rust. Stainless survives being left wet on a bench and this does not. A wipe and a smear of oil is the whole obligation, and we set the trade out plainly in Damascus versus stainless.

Olive wood and the Damascus fittings

Olive wood is one of the densest timbers used on knife handles, and it is oily in itself, which is why it takes a hand rubbed finish so well and why it resists water better than most hardwoods. The grain in olive is wild and irregular, running through creams, golds and dark browns in the same handle, so every grip on this model looks different from the last. It gives this piece its balance too: dense enough to counter the blade so the knife sits in the hand rather than pulling forward, light enough not to fight you.

The guard and butt fittings are cut from the same Damascus as the blade, which is more work than fitting brass and is the reason the pattern carries through the whole piece rather than stopping at the ricasso. Maintenance for the wood is a wipe of oil once or twice a year. It stops the timber shrinking away from the fittings in dry indoor heat, and the method takes two minutes. It is written out in wooden handle care.

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 handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On a dagger the ricasso and the flat just above it take a short line cleanly, and olive wood holds a cut without chipping. More on what fits where is on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Damascus is high carbon steel underneath the pattern, so it will rust if you leave it wet. Dry it after use, wipe it with mineral or camellia oil before it goes away for the season, and keep it out of the leather sheath for long storage because vegetable tanned leather holds moisture against steel.

Sharpening is ordinary stone work done twice over. Set your angle, work one bevel along its length, flip and match it, then repeat for the second edge. The discipline is in keeping both sides even so the point stays on the centreline. Stropping at the end brings the polish back on the flats. Both jobs are covered in steel care and sharpening with a whetstone.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This dagger is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The fire pattern is drawn out of a billet by hand and comes up differently on every blade, the olive wood grain and tone are set by the tree, and the exact profile of the point and the sweep of the bevels shift by fractions because a person ground them. The dimensions, the steel and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Are both edges sharpened

Yes. Both edges are ground and honed before packing. That is what makes it a dagger rather than a single edged knife with a pointed tip.

Is it legal to own and carry

Owning it is straightforward almost everywhere in the United States. Carrying is not: a number of states and cities write double edged blades into their statutes separately from single edged ones, and some ban concealed carry of them outright. Check your own state and city rules before you carry it out of the house.

What is a ricasso and does this have one

The ricasso is the short unsharpened section of blade just in front of the guard. This piece has one, and it is where an engraved date or set of initials usually goes.

How does olive wood compare to rosewood or walnut

Olive is denser and naturally oilier, so it takes a deeper hand rubbed finish and copes with damp better. It is also far more figured, which is why no two handles match.

Will mine look like the photograph

The shape, the dimensions and the pattern type will. The exact figure in the Damascus and the exact grain in the olive will not, because both come out of natural material worked by hand.

How long does shipping take

One to two weeks of processing in the shop, then transit. Free inside the United States. If you need it for a specific date, tell us before you order.

What is in the box

• One Olivespire Damascus dagger knife
• Fitted leather sheath
• Protective packaging
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Look at the rest of Dagger Knives, the longer double edged pieces in Damascus Swords, the Norse blades in Viking Knives and the personalised work in Engraved and Personalized. The reasoning behind the steel and the timber is in the guides.