Regarding 14th-15th century daggers (rondel, baselard, misericorde), is wood the only choice for the hilt? Are there any examples of leather 'washers' sandwhiched between quillon and pommel? How about other materials, such as deer (or other) horn, bronze? I'm working on a good 'knightly' dagger to go with a mid/late 14th century harness, but need some ideas on which direction to go with the hilt. It should be fully functional, but is only 'for show', so historical correctness is in my mind alongside strength and functionallity; however no one is likely to ever see it (except for pictures for you folks :) ).

Occasional ivory and bone hilts can be found. I know a knife maker who is patterning off an Italian rondel, and making a beautiful carved ivory hilt, with silver gilt fittings. It will be a very showy piece.

There's a little bit if info on ballock daggers in our Scottish Dirk spotlight. It goes into handle materials a little bit.

Wood was the most common, though as Jared says, horn, bone and ivory are found as well. There are some examples of metal grips as well.

If you search our photo albums, you'll find many pics of daggers, modern and antique, that show a variety of grip materials.

I dug up this thread because I have a little more specific question about rondel dagger grips. I've almost finished a 14th -15th century rondel dagger (for practice use) and I'm not sure what material I should use for the grip. I would like the rondel to somewhat pair up with my longsword, which has a black grip. So I'm thinking making a wooden core of octagonal cross section and wrapping it in leather. The thing is, I'd like it to be bit more flashy than just a plain black grip and started wondering if small tacks or nails would be okay for that era? I've searched through the albums section and looked at some repros (I really should avoid that), but nothing really seems to fit my problem. If you have any other ideas, I'd like to hear them. Also it would be very nice to see more pics of antique rondels .