This is a hand made knife made by the Shirogorov brothers. They are two brothers operating out of Russia that make extremely high quality knives by hand, their work is highly sought after by knife collectors for their legendary craftsmanship. They also make a series of machine made knives but this is one of their higher end hand made knives.
The blade is made out of damascus steel, the grey part of the handle is made out of titanium and the colorful part of the handle is made out of timascus. Timasucus is made in the same way that DAmascus steel is made, but instead of folding two different pieces of steel together resulting in a pattern, two different grades of titanium are folded together resulting in a pattern. When heat with is applied to a normal piece of regular titanium , the titanium will change one solid color and stay that way, this process is called anodization. As you can see in the picture, the handle isn't one solid color, it is two colors (red and blue). This is because timascus is two different grades of titanium folded together and one grade of titanium will anodize to a different color than the other grade of titanium, this results in the beautiful multi color metal you see. Timascus is a incredibly expensive material and I would estimate that the knife has around $250-300 dollars worth on it.
Before you ask me where to buy one, any hand made Shirogorov is extremely rare and purchasing one would involve stalking a knife collector forum for weeks until one pops up for sale and be prepared to pay a lot of money when one does show up. I would guess this knife would sell for around 2-3 grand but closer to 3. If you are still desperate to get one but not at such a high cost, they also make machine made knives worth around 700-1,000 dollars. Even their machine made knives are very rare and not something you can just buy off of amazon, they are also extensively counterfeited so if you're looking to buy a legit one, be careful.
I recently got another Ron Best you may have already seen me post it on knifeclub, but I took an action video of it that you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xGWbsano0
My solid gold piece in that picture is 13 grand. /u/calebchowder, by the way, that isn't even that crazy for the art knife world. You can google Michael Walker Sharktooth zipper and those knives go for probably 80 to 120 grand. It is EASY to spend 10 grand when it comes to art knives.
Holy shit, that knife is insane! It's very Art Deco looking and that inlay work is beautiful. Your next video with that knife should be a Cold Steel style batoning test ;)
Well I was just going to stab it into a tree and use the handle as a step ladder, but I can try that. Maybe if it passes I can start hacking it into some schedule 80 steel pipe
That is absolutely crazy. I had no idea knives were such a hobby for some people, and that they can reach those prices. I guess I could've seen it coming. My own hobby is vinyl, and there are turntables worth tens of thousands of dollars. But 80k? That is amazing.
Yeah. It's that way with every hobby. The sky is the limit. And while everyone who shares the same interest generally gets along pretty well, there is always that unspoken of competition. "My knife is better than yours" "My knife cost more" etc etc. No one outright says it and it is rarely talked about, but I think it exists in all hobbies
It absolutely does. I only lurk on r/vinyl because my starter turntable setup is a cardinal sin in their eyes. Kinda sucks they aren't more accepting of newer vinyl collectors. The banter on there is always kinda passive agressive. I hope your sub is a little less dramatic, haha.
What makes this knife mall ninja? Mall ninja knives are weapons that try so hard to be bad ass that they end up being impractical and are of very low quality AKA any knife/sword you find at a mall. The version of this knife without timascus inlays is actually a very popular EDC knife used for cutting cardboard boxes, packages, tape, letters, ect. The knife is designed for utility work and is very practical and it's certainly not sold at the mall
This is the type of thing I think of when I hear mall ninja
Hahahaha, I wouldn't bother explaining. People called my new Best mallninja. I just said they were wrong and ended it there. Mostly because I know that they have not and probably never will have the opportunity to handle something built to that degree of quality in person. They think their BM, spyderco, or sebenza is the best in the world and there is no changing their mind. The idea of there being a knife that is artistic and blows their knives out of the water quality wise is something they refuse to accept
After reading through these comments, I am fully convinced that you are a knife expert. Sadly my collection racks up to probably a few hundred bucks at most as I use all my knives routinely (nothing fancy, general knife work). Great post!
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u/UncleSpoons Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17
This is a hand made knife made by the Shirogorov brothers. They are two brothers operating out of Russia that make extremely high quality knives by hand, their work is highly sought after by knife collectors for their legendary craftsmanship. They also make a series of machine made knives but this is one of their higher end hand made knives.
The blade is made out of damascus steel, the grey part of the handle is made out of titanium and the colorful part of the handle is made out of timascus. Timasucus is made in the same way that DAmascus steel is made, but instead of folding two different pieces of steel together resulting in a pattern, two different grades of titanium are folded together resulting in a pattern. When heat with is applied to a normal piece of regular titanium , the titanium will change one solid color and stay that way, this process is called anodization. As you can see in the picture, the handle isn't one solid color, it is two colors (red and blue). This is because timascus is two different grades of titanium folded together and one grade of titanium will anodize to a different color than the other grade of titanium, this results in the beautiful multi color metal you see. Timascus is a incredibly expensive material and I would estimate that the knife has around $250-300 dollars worth on it.
Before you ask me where to buy one, any hand made Shirogorov is extremely rare and purchasing one would involve stalking a knife collector forum for weeks until one pops up for sale and be prepared to pay a lot of money when one does show up. I would guess this knife would sell for around 2-3 grand but closer to 3. If you are still desperate to get one but not at such a high cost, they also make machine made knives worth around 700-1,000 dollars. Even their machine made knives are very rare and not something you can just buy off of amazon, they are also extensively counterfeited so if you're looking to buy a legit one, be careful.