[Paul Abrams]

Hi all,

I have a question about historical parrying daggers. It seems that some daggers have four quillon shapes:

1. straight quillons
2. forward projecting quillons
3. S-shaped: left quillon up, right down (seems most typical of S-quillons for right-handed fencers)
4. S-shaped: right up quillon up, left down (I've personally only seen this for lefties)

Which styles seem to be more prevalent and why? Was one of them more common for a wielder who prefers a thumb grip?

I'm interested academically but ultimately I have a specific reason for asking this question. I have an A&A cavalier rapier and am considering purchasing a matching parrying dagger. The sword has S-shaped quillons and I'm right-handed, so the dagger would match nicely if it also had S-shaped quillons. However, I prefer a thumb grip over a hammer fist grip.

http://armor.com/rapier164.html

I've attached an image of a matching dagger that A&A built for a leftie. (However, I'm right-handed.)

Cheers,
Paul

[Gabriele Becattini]

Hi Paul,

if you look inside the album section you'll find a lot of parring dagger, from what i have seen the two most common variant are the straight and up-turned quillons, if i have to guess a specific reason apart personal taste is that the two mentioned
form are fit for both right and left hand user, and also speaking from an user point of views probably are the most confortable to hold with the thumb grip. i have always used straight quillons for my parring dagger and i have found it
very comfortable to use with the thumb grip wich in my fencing group is the only metod we use for gripping the dagger.