Hey Albion guys...

Looking at the marvelous line of next gen swords on your site, one thing struck me... where's the daggers?

Sources for quality daggers are few and far between. You can go lower end... MRL say, and get a decent piece for rock bottom price, but it's not really special. You can go custom and get some nice pieces, but waiting can be excruciating and the prices... not so cheap (though I picked up a great Tinker ballock knofe for a bargain price at Bladeart). A&A makes some lovely semi-production daggers (gonna get a rondel dagger soon), but then ya hit empty. Albion is rapidly extablishing a reputation for great quality and historical accuracy at fair prices. How about some love for daggers!? Some I'd like to see:

Seax knife
the ever-popular sword-hilted dagger
baselard
ballock knife
rondel

Come on'... whaddya say? I need another cool ballock knife for the collection! (My wife thinks I'm developing an unhealthy fascination with ballock knives. ;) )

Mike

A quality rondel dagger would be great. I think I'm set for ballock daggers right now ( http://www.myArmoury.com/chad_dagg_ve_ball.html ). :)

Albion daggers would be cool, for sure. But I'm sure they have enough on their plates to keep them busy for a while. :)

IIRC Albion was going to do daggers, before the whole NG thing got going. Perhaps once the NG line is more or less set and humming along we will see them. Great list, by the way. I'd buy a the quillon and rondel, at least.
IMPO It's hard to gauge the market for daggers. With swords, even mid-to-high-price-point ones like the NGs, one can count on some level of "WMA appeal" -- ie some people are buying with the intention of cutting. That isn't something that can be said of daggers. What can you really "do" with a dagger outside of collecting and costume use? I, personally, would pay for a historically accurate "NG dagger," but others might balk at a NG-type price for a dagger they intend only for costume use.

Brian M

I wonder what Albion could price them at? $200?

Brian M

Hey Guys,

There are some mindreaders out there I think....
Risking the danger of spoiling the surprice, I dare to say there has been talk about making daggers as an expansion of the NG line. Perhaps Howy can fill you in more on this at some later time.

These ideas are still very much on the planning stage but the idea with these knives/daggers are the same as the rest of the NG line: models based on research and documentation of originals, but not copying one single specimen, rather merging data from several examples to come up with a good representative of a type. There are some obvious candidates (mentioned already in this thread), but it is to early to say what types are possible to produce.

It is important to realize that there is almost as much work in fitting and mounting a dagger as there is in a sword. There is no real difference in the complexity of the cutlery work. (this means about the same work time has to be spent= similar cost) Some daggers are even more demanding than a sword. Worktime will be less when it comes to the blade (but this also depends on the complexity of the grind).
I do not think it is reasonable to think an accurate and detailed quality dagger could be made for around 200 USD. (Compare how much a quality production "tactical fighting knife" costs...And these are just a slabs of steel and para cord wrapped arount the tang. Not much handwork or fitting there.)

At this time I think no one can say anything more definite than that regarding price level. Sorry.

It all depends on complexity and detail. This will vary between different types and styles. Remember that the dagger often was the male dress embellishment par excellance and an important status symbol. When the wearing of a sword was not always practical or even lawful, the dagger could always be brought along. This led to the dagger or knife getting attention as status symbol. The carving of the hilt, tooling of the leather and other craft aspects were often on a level to inspire admiration and envy.

Personally, I am fascianted by these weapons. There is a rich variation in blade types and blade geometries. Somtething you seldom see put to use in production or even custom work.
The same goes for hilt styles.
Rondells or a Ballock daggers can be made in hundreds of diffent styles, and each of these has their own charm.
Swiss Degen (short swords/daggers) are also very nice when properly made.
Early medieval and viking age tool and war knives are also a very rich material to work with.
...I could go on.

It is nice to see people expressing an interest in this. I for one am interested to hear more about what you´d like to see in production.

I vote high middle ages all the way. Especially as I have little knowledge of daggers in this era. Oakeshott and Edge claim that knives/daggers were not often worn during this period as a complement to the sword. They point out that this begins to happen after 1300 or so. I am completely ignorant of the Viking era however, but I am working on that! :)
Thanks, Jeremy

I think there is definetly a market for NG daggers. They could possibly attract knife collectors who are not into swords.

"I for one am interested to hear more about what you´d like to see in production."

Ballock daggers Peter, Ballock daggers!

Well...I would be intersted in seeing the offerings, as I'm sure they would be great. just not sure I'm going to wait very long to fill this particular need.

I nominate the holbeins.

Another thing to consider is that there are many thousands of knife collectors out there that spend as much on their knives as we spend on swords. These people may not be interested in buying swords but I could see them finding interest in adding high quality historic knives/daggers to their collections.




Besides, I'd say anything to get Albion to start offering daggers! :D

I'll put my vote in for 13th Century sword-hilted daggers! They seem to have been put to good use in the Maciejowski Bible.

If by "daggers" we can include various shorter blades, then I know of several projects I would like to see made in the NG line.

16th century Irish long skean--would be a nice compliment to the single hand ring hilt, too

Early Germanic long knives---like the Hjortspring "swords", the Vimose "seax", etc.

Celtic anthro hilts----only one or two of these had a blade much longer than 16", so they fit this category. It would be nice to finally see an accurate repro of one of these. Personally, I would like to a class "D" like number 26 in Clarke

early iron-age Iberian antennae short "sword" These little numbers often seem to have right around a 16" blade or so, I would like to see one of these, either in waisted blade or with the more "La Tene I" blade profile, with the dual spheroid "antennae" pommel

early Irish Iron age "swords" these are all pretty much dagger size, it would be great to see one of the more interesting cross section ones here---double fullered, or hollow ground with flanking grooves, etc (Mr. subliminal says LisnacrogherLisnacrogherLisnacrogherLisnacrogher :))

There are more really nice short blades that currently have no higher end repros done on them, these are just a couple on my "wish list"

Second the request for a circa 13th Century sword-hilted (quillon) dagger. And a rondel too. And a short (i.e. tool) seax and a longer fighting seax.

Brian M

I say, yes, yes , yes , yes and yes.