Monarch D2 Tool Steel Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-79

The BF-79 Monarch is a full-size Filipino balisong: 29cm open, a 14cm D2 tool steel blade, brass handles with bone inserts, 220 grams. This is the traditional Batangas proportion rather than the shortened frame most shops sell, and it is aimed at someone who wants the real dimension and has the hands and the patience for it. A trainer with no edge costs the same and is chosen above Add to Cart.

Twenty-nine centimetres is not a marketing number

The classic Batangas balisong is described as veinte y nueve, twenty-nine, because that is what it measures open. Not approximately, not “inspired by”. Twenty-nine centimetres.

Almost nobody builds to it any more. Shorter frames are cheaper to make, easier to ship, easier to sell to a beginner, and they photograph much the same. So the 24cm knife became the default and the original dimension quietly became a specialist item.

This is the original dimension. Fourteen centimetres of blade, 220 grams, and a frame long enough that the rotation takes visibly longer than you expect if you have only handled shorter knives.

What the extra length and weight actually change

Longer arc, slower rotation, more momentum once it is moving, and considerably more consequence when it lands wrong. That is the honest summary.

Experienced flippers generally describe a 29cm knife as more deliberate. There is more time inside each movement, which some people find luxurious and others find sluggish. Sequences that snap crisply on a 24cm frame become sweeping on this one.

The 220 grams carries through rotations with very little help from you. It also arrives with authority. A knife this size dropped on a bare foot is a genuinely bad afternoon, which is one reason the trainer version exists.

Is 220 grams too much for a beginner?

Mostly, yes. We will lose sales saying that and we would rather say it.

The reason is not that the knife is difficult in some mystical sense. It is that a long heavy balisong punishes a loose grip harder and gives you less time to correct a movement that started badly. Beginners make both of those mistakes constantly, which is fine and normal, but the correction is more expensive here.

If this is your first balisong and you want it anyway, buy the trainer version. Same knife, same weight, same price, no edge. Learn on it for a couple of months and then decide whether you want the sharp one. That path costs you nothing extra and it is what we would tell a friend.

Bone balisong handles, and what they do over years

The inserts are bone, set into a brass frame. Bone is one of the oldest handle materials there is and it behaves differently from every synthetic alternative.

• It takes a hold. Bone has a slight tooth to it, dry or damp, where polished brass alone is slippery.
• It warms. After a few minutes it sits at hand temperature rather than staying cold like the surrounding metal.
• It ages. Bone yellows and deepens with handling and skin oil. Slowly, over years, and unevenly.
• It is not uniform. Bone is a natural material, so no two sets are identically figured or identically coloured. If you want two knives that match exactly, do not order two of these.
• It is not fragile. Properly set bone survives normal flipping. It will chip if you drop the knife hard onto concrete, but so will most things.

D2 steel at the top of this balisong range

D2 is a high-carbon, high-chromium tool steel, usually run near 60 HRC. Compared to the high carbon knives in this same series, it holds an edge several times longer and resists corrosion considerably better, and in exchange it fights you when you finally do sharpen it. Ceramic stones make slow, disheartening progress on D2. Use diamond.

That is the whole trade. High carbon takes a finer edge and comes back on any stone in minutes. D2 stays acceptably sharp for a very long time and then demands proper equipment. If you are a person who sharpens things for pleasure, buy high carbon. If you are a person who wants to sharpen twice a year, this is your steel.

Price, shipping and the trainer for this D2 butterfly knife

This sits at the top of this run of knives, which reflects the 29cm frame, the extra material, and bone inserts that have to be selected and fitted individually rather than cut from sheet stock.

A fitted leather sheath is included. On a 29cm knife that is worth saying out loud, because most sheaths sold separately are cut for the standard 24cm frame and will not close over this one.

US shipping is free. Everywhere else is a flat $49 for the whole order regardless of size. The unsharpened trainer is the same price, because grinding an edge is one step out of many and pretending otherwise would be a discount we did not actually earn.

the D2 is hardened to 58-60 HRC, which is the window where it holds an edge without turning brittle on you.