Cold Steel Italian Dagger

My Cold Steel Italian dagger arrived Wednesday and is spectacular. The workmanship is excellent with a (working - not shaving) sharp, straight blade with good symmetry and bright polish, nice sharp strong point, well made leather grip with heavy stainless steel cross guard and pommel. The sheath is wood with leather cover and steel fittings - seems well made and fits the dagger well. Unlike many copies of historic weapons I've owned, this one has a quality and heft to it that I believe would make it highly functional as well as being a beautiful re-enactment piece. Clearly not an EDC at this size, but would brighten up the eyes of a late night intruder. Never forget however, don't take a knife to a gun fight.

This dagger is the perfect companion to the longsword, crafted with the same attention to functionality, balance and design. I haven't performed an empirical experiment but do not doubt that the dagger is fully capable of parrying a solid blow from another edged weapon if no shield or buckler is carried, or serves as an at-hand weapon in it's own right. The leather wrap on the handle is supple and tough, provides excellent grip and is well-fitted. The cross section of the blade is diamond-shaped and the edges are SHARP. No false-edges here. Well worth the expense.

OK, so maybe I didn't read the product specs close enough, but this blade is HUGE for a dagger. The blade alone is 13." Add another 6 inches for the guard, handle and pommel, and you have yourself a formidable blade. The blade seems well constructed and well balanced. The edge could hardly be considered sharpened, but that may be for liability reasons. I recently started collecting daggers and I received another blade by a custom blade designer that had been sharpened to a frighteningly honed edge. This blade looks as though they passed it over a grinder a couple of times for each side and called it good. I'll probably take it to a professional knife shop and have it honed. It comes with a wooden sheath wrapped in leather. It's constructed from high carbon steel and is designed to withstand the stresses of actual battle. I probably won't ever have cause to use it (i hope) - I think just seeing this thing pointed in my direction and glinting in the sun would be enough to cause ME to think twice about any aggressive actions. Very nice blade.

I reviewed the Cold Steel Italian Long Sword before I ever reviewed this. I was very very impressed with both pieces.There are some who would go so far to describe this dagger as a short sword. While I wouldn't go that far, I will say this dagger is pretty darned big. I am accustomed to the word "dagger" being ascribed to a double edged blade of about 9 to 12 inches from pommel to tip. This is much larger than that. It probably measures around 18 inches, but I have not measured it myself.The hilt is wrapped in what feels like leather that you would find on a coat. This actually seems to provide more grip than the more traditional roughened/hardened leather. Even with sweaty hands after a long work out I have found no dangerous slippage in grip.Every piece is firmly attached to the last. No part of this wiggles or vibrates, or makes strange scraping sounds as I have found in much cheaper pieces. This is a very well constructed piece.The edge is quite sharp without being sharp enough to shave with. It seems to hold its edge fairly well. This blade seems to be made of fairly good steel. It is strong without being brittle. It is definitely not pot metal.The pommel is also solid enough that if needed one could strike a solid blow with it.This is a practical piece that exists in a world where such weapons are no longer practical. Do I love it anyway? Hell yes.I just wish that I had purchased this for myself instead of for my husband.

I suspect that the Cold Steel weapons on Amazon are seconds that Cold Steel sells to other vendors at a big discount. This dagger (really more like a dirk or short sword) arrived with several blemishes on the blade and guard, and a scratch on the leather scabbard. The blade and guard cleaned up nicely with some Mothers polish and a little elbow grease, and black shoe polish took care of the scratched scabbard. The grip is unmarred, the edges and tip of the blade are reasonably sharp, and the overall construction seems very solid. So it's an OK dagger for the price, if you're willing to put in some repair time.

The media could not be loaded. It is a 13 inches long dagger with a hand and half grip and it is balanced just on the guard that makes this the most fearsome fast and mean dagger, but beautiful like a lady nevertheless.It is battle ready sharp, not razor sharp.Still, I managed to cut paper with this awesome weapon.It's a beefy flat grind, no secondary bevel, which I love.The Cold Steel Italian dagger feels at ease between the intimidating Cold Steel 1917 Frontier Bowie and the sleek Windlass Steelcraft Battlecry dagger.If you are into collecting weapons or HEMA consider this beautiful dagger.You will be pleased.Purchased on Amazon on 5/22/2019 for $96.33 plus taxes (Total $104.71).PS: I suspect this is a factory 2nd as the blade max width at the base is 40 mm and not 43 mm as by spec sheet. I couldn't care less.A really good price for this dagger.Happy bunny I am.

First off, this is a really nice dagger for the price. I'm giving it a one star so that people know this item is NOT the dagger pictured. The picture is of the version with 3 groves in the handle, and what arrived was the version with 2 groves. I was happy enough with the dagger's quality that I am planing on buying the matching sword as well, I just want to buy the 3 groove version so that they match.