Perlas Handmade D2 Steel Balisong Tanto Blade Knife| Mother of Pearl & Steel Engraved Bolsters Handle | Premium Butterfly Knife with Leather Sheath BF-141

The BF-141 is a D2 blade with mother of pearl panels and engraved steel bolsters. Mother of pearl is the most fragile handle material we work with, and if you are buying this one you should know that before it arrives rather than after.

What mother of pearl is

It is nacre, the lining that certain molluscs build inside their shells. Layers of aragonite platelets stacked so finely that they split light, which is why the surface shifts colour as you turn it. Nothing manufactured looks quite like it, and that is the entire reason it costs what it does.

It is cut in thin sections, bedded onto the handle and worked flat by hand. Slowly, because it will chip if it is rushed.

The honest warning

Mother of pearl is brittle. Not delicate in a precious way, brittle in a physical way. Drop this knife on a tile floor and you may lose a corner of a panel. Wood dents, horn scuffs, micarta shrugs. Pearl chips, and a chip does not polish out.

• Do not use this as your learning knife. Learn on the trainer.
• Do not flip it over concrete, tile or stone if you are still dropping things.
• Do keep it in the leather sheath rather than loose in a drawer with other hardware.
• Do keep it away from ammonia based cleaners, which attack nacre.

Handled sensibly it will outlive you. Handled carelessly it is the one material here that will not forgive you.

Why anyone buys it anyway

Because under a light it does something no other handle material does. The colour moves as your wrist moves. In a display case it is the piece people pick up first. This is a knife bought with the eyes and there is nothing wrong with that.

Engraved steel bolsters

Steel rather than brass, engraved by hand. The cool grey of steel keeps the pearl looking bright rather than warming it the way gold toned brass would, and steel holds a crisp engraved line better than softer metals.

The blade, and what D2 gives it

D2 tool steel at 58-60 HRC on a 29cm frame, 205g. High carbon, high chromium, holds an edge for a long time, sharpens on ordinary stones, resists rust without being stainless.

One thing to check on arrival

Our listing and our title disagree on whether this blade is a tanto or a double edge. The photographs on this page are correct. If what arrives does not match what you expected, tell us and we will sort it out. We would rather flag our own paperwork than have you discover it in the box.

Who this is for

A collector, or somebody buying a gift that has to look like an occasion. The price is in the shell and the hours of careful flattening, not in the steel.

Specifications for this D2 tanto balisong

Included with this D2 butterfly knife

The knife itself, hand sharpened and hand tuned. A fitted leather sheath made for this frame. A gift box, included as standard.

And a trainer version if you choose it above Add to Cart, matched to this knife in size and weight but with no edge on it. Take it. Learning on a sharp knife is how people end up in the emergency room with a story.

Engraving, if you want it: $19 for initials or short text, $29 for a custom logo. Choose before you add to cart. Free shipping in the United States, flat $49 worldwide.

Mother of pearl is the most fragile handle material on this bench, and how to look after it, along with what will and will not damage it, is covered in our handle materials guide. The Perlas belongs to the Balisong Prime range. Its engraved steel bolsters match the Ugat, which pairs the same steel bolster work with a stag handle instead of pearl.

Buying for groomsmen? This balisong also comes as a matched set of 6, 15% less than buying six singly, and each one can carry its own engraved name.