Handmade Karambit Balisong Butterfly Knife | High Polished Blade | Buffalo Horn Handle with Brass Bolsters and Leather Sheath BF-173

The BF-173 is a karambit balisong with black buffalo horn panels and brass bolsters, $235. Horn and brass is the oldest material pairing in Batangas, and putting it on a karambit is either a nice piece of cross pollination or a category error, depending on how strict you are about these things.

Horn and brass, and why the combination lasted

It lasted because it solves a real problem cheaply. Brass is easy to work, does not rust, and machines to a tight fit around a pivot. Horn is free if you keep buffalo, comfortable in the hand, and does not conduct heat or cold.

The look came second. Nobody in Batangas set out to make brass and black horn a signature; they made knives out of what was in the yard, and a century later it reads as the classic combination because it worked well enough that nobody replaced it.

Reading real horn

Hold a panel up to a light. Real buffalo horn is translucent at the thin edges and almost always shows amber or honey streaking running with the grain. It is keratin, the same protein as a fingernail, so it warms in your hand within seconds.

Black polymer does none of that. It stays opaque, stays cool, and is uniformly black in a way nothing that grew on an animal ever is. If a listing shows horn that is a perfectly even black across the whole panel, you are looking at plastic or at very heavy dye.

What horn needs from you

Almost nothing, and one thing specifically. Its only real enemy is prolonged extreme dryness, which can open a crack along the grain. Handling prevents that on its own, because the oils from your hands do the job.

If the knife is going to live in a display case, wipe the panels with a trace of mineral oil once a year. If it lives in a pocket, forget this paragraph entirely.

The brass will not stay bright

It will go from yellow towards a soft gold and eventually a warm brown. That is the oxide layer and it protects the metal underneath. Polish it back whenever you like, or leave it and let it settle against the black of the horn, which is what we would do.

The ring on a dress knife

Worth saying plainly: a finger ring is a working feature, and this is a knife finished like a collector’s piece. That tension is the point of it. The materials say mantelpiece and the geometry says field tool, and the two arguing with each other is more interesting than either would be alone.

Specifications for this horn and brass karambit balisong

Ordering the BF-173

Sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, with a fitted leather sheath cut for this frame and a gift box.

Or take it as a trainer instead. Identical frame, identical weight, no cutting edge, and the price does not move.

Laser engraving is $29, chosen on this page. Free shipping inside the United States, flat $49 worldwide.