What qualifies as a dress scian dubh?

[HeeHeeHeeHaw]

I've recently got a scian dubh with a plain wood handle and a nice sharp blade, but what would make one qualify as a dress scian dubh

[Tomo]

Dress sgian dubhs are typically black wood with metal fittings. Higher quality ones have sterling silver fittings.

Sadly I can't add photos to illustrate this.

A lot of modern ones are massed produced and best avoided. House of Labhran has some vintage examples and Rainnea / Loch Ness Originals make some nice modern versions.

There are some rare, vintage examples with ivory handles.

[HeeHeeHeeHaw]

Dress sgian dubhs are typically black wood with metal fittings. Higher quality ones have sterling silver fittings.

Sadly I can't add photos to illustrate this.

A lot of modern ones are massed produced and best avoided. House of Labhran has some vintage examples and Rainnea / Loch Ness Originals make some nice modern versions.

There are some rare, vintage examples with ivory handles.

Thank you very much

[FossilHunter]

As has been mentioned, black and silver more or less qualifies a sgian dubh as suitable for formal wear.

Not wanting to deal with two sgian dubh, I bought a simple bog oak and pewter sgian to wear for anything. I’d be open to something nice with sterling fittings if it came along but I have few enough black tie events to go to that a do it all knife made the most sense to me. I also prefer a simple knife of good quality to a cheap plastic handled one.

[Troglodyte]

Your question is a bit like asking what features make a dress sporran.

Everyone will have their own ideas as to what counts as 'dress', and it is entirely subject to personal taste and preference. But, as with sporrans, intended use and decoration has a part to play.

As most men here in Scotland tend to wear their (often only) kilt just a few times a year, and then for formal events like a wedding or Burns' Night dinner, the tendancy is to see more in the range of smart, fancy accessories.

It should be remembered that, in Scotland, the kilt and Highland dress is worn in a more relaxed and comfortable way, and so the codes and categories that get promoted in North America are given little or no regard here in the home country.

That is to say, that a man will go kilted to his local Higland Games wearing his kilt, sporran and sgian dubh that he always wears - whatever the occasion. So you will see rather fancy, dressy items being worn in a casual way that over on the other side of the Atlantic would fall foul of The Rules.

Generally speaking, a sgian dubh (which translates as black knife) will have a black handle and sheath, and usually trimmed with silver - which is perfectly in keeping with day-wear with traditional Highland dress at whatever level of formality.

However, there are some (and I include myself in this group) who feel a beautifuly-made, silver-trimmed sgian is a bit too precious for practical utility use, and so carry a 'day' sgian and use it as a general purpose knife. Some of these can be very attractive, and smart enough for more formal wear, too.

The attached pictures show examples of what is generally considered a dress sgian (a true vintage at the House of Labhran) with all the fancy silver trim, and a group of more general-purpose sgians with roebuck antler handles and damascus blades. This group, with their polished silver end-caps, would also serve for formal wear.

[OC Richard]

The various Highland weapons probably started out as rather utilitarian, but as we go from around 1700 up to the mid-19th century they got progressively more ornate, with silver fittings (plain, then later engraved, then later cast like jewellery).

These in the natural course of things became our modern traditional Sgians and Dirks.

Then in Victorian times there was a strange urge to try to revive older more rustic things and we see the appearance of rough tan leather Ghillies, pseudo-ancient sporrans, etc.

What I would like to know is if this pseudo-ancient/pseudo-rustic Revival "noble savage" Victorian aesthetic created the horn Sgians and Dirks.

In other words did the rustic and ornate Sgians and Dirks continuously exist side-by-side since the 17th century? Or are the rustic ones a Victorian back-formation?

History aside, practically speaking it seems common to wear the same ordinary traditional modern Sgian with any Highland outfit. However from what I see most people forgo wearing a Sgian with outdoor "Day" dress.

[Troglodyte]

The various Highland weapons probably started out as rather utilitarian, but as we go from around 1700 up to the mid-19th century they got progressively more ornate, with silver fittings (plain, then later engraved, then later cast like jewellery).

These in the natural course of things became our modern traditional Sgians and Dirks.

Then in Victorian times there was a strange urge to try to revive older more rustic things and we see the appearance of rough tan leather Ghillies, pseudo-ancient sporrans, etc.

What I would like to know is if this pseudo-ancient/pseudo-rustic Revival "noble savage" Victorian aesthetic created the horn Sgians and Dirks.

In other words did the rustic and ornate Sgians and Dirks continuously exist side-by-side since the 17th century? Or are the rustic ones a Victorian back-formation?

History aside, practically speaking it seems common to wear the same ordinary traditional modern Sgian with any Highland outfit. However from what I see most people forgo wearing a Sgian with outdoor "Day" dress.

I think you are spot-on here.

Lord Archibald Campbell put in a great deal of time and effort is researching, collecting and classifying genuine Highland weapons, along with items of Highland dress and ornament, and published his findings in 1899.

His collection is extraordinary, and includes some of the finest basket-hilt swords to be seen, in addition to the huge mass of claymore blades that got used a garden railings around London houses following The '45. If you can find a copy of Highland Dress, Arms and Ornament, (a limited number - 250 only - were reprinted in 1969) I thoroughly reccommend the book.

He touches only lightly on sgians, but the example he shows is about as basic as the come - none of the highly decorated and finely-made knives we think of today. The only example of a sgian he illustates gets no mention in the picture caption, and in the text it is described simply as '...of very ancient date.'

Appearance is what you might expect - a short pointed blade mounted with a slightly longer handle than we now see, rather crude, and probably made of wood or horn.

The fact that he passes over sgians so lightly, with no reference to the fancy weaponry his contemporary revivalists decked themselves out in, kind of confirms my own theory that a sgian of old was no kind of ornament, but was entirely a general-purpose utility knife.

Malcolm Ferris-Lay's book The Sgian Dubh is the one to turn to, if wanting the definitive on what is a dress sgian. His examples are the stuff of fantasy and desire.

[stickman]

I think you are spot-on here.

Lord Archibald Campbell put in a great deal of time and effort is researching, collecting and classifying genuine Highland weapons, along with items of Highland dress and ornament, and published his findings in 1899.

His collection is extraordinary, and includes some of the finest basket-hilt swords to be seen, in addition to the huge mass of claymore blades that got used a garden railings around London houses following The '45. If you can find a copy of Highland Dress, Arms and Ornament, (a limited number - 250 only - were reprinted in 1969) I thoroughly reccommend the book.

He touches only lightly on sgians, but the example he shows is about as basic as the come - none of the highly decorated and finely-made knives we think of today. The only example of a sgian he illustates gets no mention in the picture caption, and in the text it is described simply as '...of very ancient date.'

Appearance is what you might expect - a short pointed blade mounted with a slightly longer handle than we now see, rather crude, and probably made of wood or horn.

The fact that he passes over sgians so lightly, with no reference to the fancy weaponry his contemporary revivalists decked themselves out in, kind of confirms my own theory that a sgian of old was no kind of ornament, but was entirely a general-purpose utility knife.

Malcolm Ferris-Lay's book The Sgian Dubh is the one to turn to, if wanting the definitive on what is a dress sgian. His examples are the stuff of fantasy and desire.

I wonder if those claymore railings are still there. I remember during the Second World War when everyone lost their iron railings. They were all cut off and went for the war effort.

[Troglodyte]

I wonder if those claymore railings are still there. I remember during the Second World War when everyone lost their iron railings. They were all cut off and went for the war effort.

There were so many blades collected by the government as they pacified and disarmed the Highlands after 1746, that they didn't know what to do with them.

So the hilts were taken off, and the blades set into iron bars as railings around the the gardens and squares of the rapidly expanding West End of London of the era. Lord Archibald Campbell later went around town finding these old blades and bought up what he could.

I remember seeing railings in London that looked too much like sword blades for them to be anything else - some may well still be in place.

The WWII iron railling 'donation' to the war effort was a ruse used by certain newspapers for patriotic purposes, but the government of the time had no real need of them. They were all taken unnecessarily, it turned out. I believe that even as late as the 1970s piles of 17th-19th century railings were still stockpiled along suburban railway sidings, and the stumps of the cut-off railings are to be found all around British cities.

[Hirsty]

Silver is the simplest answer. However, precious/semi-precious stones, bog oak or exotic woods, precious metal inlays, horn or ivory or bone, detailed carving, etc on the hilt and sheath. It really depends on the knife maker and the person wearing it.