Dress dirk

[kfalardeau]

I'm in the market for my first dirk. This will mainly be worn with full number 1 dress when performing with my band, and perhaps the occasional black tie type event or Burns Night.

All I'm able to find available are either very poorly made none functional costume dirk's, more traditional day wear Dirk's, or very beautiful historic regimental dirk's that are outside of my price range.

Any recommendations on where to source one?

[ShaunMaxwell]

Try Scotia Metal Work: http://scotiametalwork.com/page14.html

Mike McCrae does excellent work.

See recent thread here: http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...alworks-96930/

Cheers,

SM

[kfalardeau]

Thanks, I'll check him out.

[Crazy Dave]

I'm not an expert on formal Scottish wear, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt. I have had very good luck with Cold Steel products. I don't own one, but I have been eyeing their Scottish Dirk, which is styled like a traditional dirk. They can be had for around $90 at a lot of different places. The quality of what I own has always been very high.

https://www.atlantacutlery.com/scottish-dirk

[Panache]

I'm not an expert on formal Scottish wear, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt. I have had very good luck with Cold Steel products. I don't own one, but I have been eyeing their Scottish Dirk, which is styled like a traditional dirk. They can be had for around $90 at a lot of different places. The quality of what I own has always been very high.

https://www.atlantacutlery.com/scottish-dirk

I have two dirks, one I made myself from a blade from Atlanta Cutlery and use with my highlander Renaissance Fair outfit and the other is from Cold Steel (a gift from my beloved F-H.C.A.G.) I have worn the Cold Steel one only once formally and though it is simple, I think it threads the needle between the practical early looking dirks that are inappropriate for formal dress and the overwrought chrome and fake jeweled ones with poor quality blades. It is a wonderful knife and came with a "British Proof Test". Here is what it looked like with my doublet



While I admit that I thought I looked quite splendid with the sword belt and dirk with my doublet I have to say that walking about a party with a great big knife on my hip was often quite awkward. As a dancer I had to shed the belt and blade when the music started. Even sitting with the thing was awkward. As the MC of this formal Burns Night I believe wearing it was appropriate (or at least acceptable). However I do not plan to repeat the process, once was enough!

The Cold Steel dirk gets very high marks from me and is my favorite dagger in my modest collection.

Cheers

Jamie

[Crazy Dave]

Hi Jamie,

Glad you could verify what I thought about the Cold Steel Dirk. I think it is a very good deal for the money. It does look very smart with the sword belt and the doublet. I get what you mean about the difficulty of navigating a party with a knife that large. Also, Cold Steel product are razor sharp, so if someone wants to see it, you have to be careful. A person could get quite a cut if they assumed it was dull. Cold Steel makes real weapons. This is no exception. A person might want to check the laws in their area, before wearing it. It is still on the wish list!

I've also looked at Atlanta Cutlery's Sgian Dubh blades. I plan to build one of those.

[OC Richard]

All the ones I saw above were reproduction 18th century dirks.

If you were looking for Victorian-style dirks with knife and fork there are inexpensive ones made in India but most of them are gaudy and ill-proportioned.

There were some that were nicer than most, plain nickel fittings and decent proportions for around $100 but I can't find them online now.

I did find this site which has some decent-looking inexpensive India-made reproduction Victorian dirks, though they are a bit on the gaudy side:

http://www.allscots.co.nz/dirks2.htm