Restoration of a real Italian Arditi trench dagger from WW1. It is very uncommon to find a knife from 1915 in such a beautiful condition.

ABOUT THE WW1 TRENCH DAGGER

This dagger has most likely belonged to an Italian “Arditi” from Royal Italian Army elite special force of World War I. They were the first modern storm troops and they have been defined as "the most feared corps by opposing armies". Italy fought as allied together with Serbia, Russia, France, Britain and the United States against Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire who together formed the Central Powers. For me it feels like I’ve been giving the holy grail. Thank you so much.

ABOUT THE RESTORATION

Restoration started by removing some of the corrosion from the brass so it could be figured out how to disassemble the knife. The knife blade and the handle were in unreal good condition with only minor damage to repair. The knife blade was sandblasted and MIG welded a reinforcement in the upper side of the blade cause the upper part was in really bad shape.

A big crack which went thru both sides of the tip on the dagger was also repaired. It was choosed TIG welding for this job to have more control because the metal was fragile. The knife blade was grinded and the metal was hardened and was made it all look as good as possible, without compromising the original trench build from WW1.

The beautiful old dagger handle got a gentle sandblasting too. There was a big hole on one of the quillons that was choosed to fill up with solder.