I have known Mr. David Carr (aka Syriennion) for far too long honestly. We initially met through our mutual friend and mentor Bigwig (if you don’t who know Bigwig is, educate yourself) as members of his Warren on Facebook. Warren… it’s a rabbit thing, don’t ask. I will get more into my history with David at another time . That’ll be one for the record books Restricted. Mature audiences only.

On with the featured presentation…

As some of you may know David shot out like a rocket to continue his research into who Sgt. John J. Styers was as a man beyond what we have seen through his seminal classic, Cold Steel and a handful of appearances in Leatherneck Magazine. Please, allow me to remind you, or if the case, inform you for the first time, what is shown within the pages of Cold Steel is NOT the hand-to-hand combat system of Sgt. Styers. It is simply a quickly learned curriculum in order to make a man (or a woman) more readily capable in a violent confrontation as the techniques are rudimentary and easily retained.

Naturally, the the study of Styers lead to the peak at who his instructors were. Who were the actual base for Styers’ expression of armed and unarmed combat? One name specifically that stood out was the 1920 Olympic Sabre Fencing gold medalist, Giorgio Santelli.

Styers studied fencing under Maestro Santelli prior to the war but this is where we leave Styers behind.

Soon enough, having this Olympic Gold Medalist, not to mention countless other accolades, including winning honor duels, seemingly at their doorstep the Office of Strategic Services came knocking.

Drawing inspiration from the digitally undocumented contract Giorgio Santelli had with the OSS, we introduce a series of tools crafted precisely to the specifications Santelli outlined during World War II.

Santelli supplied specialized sleeve knives to operatives departing from Scotland on covert missions across Europe. These tools were ingeniously fashioned from broken sport fencing blades, a resource Santelli had in abundance and which were readily available throughout Europe. As a result, the knives appeared locally produced, with no traceable connection back to the OSS or the Allies as a whole.

Santelli envisioned a tool that was more concealable, disposable, and deniable than anything previously issued. Including the iconic Fairbairn-Sykes Dagger.

Allow us to present Maestro Giorgio Santelli’s original concept brought to you through our uncompromising filter. David Carr and I will be launching Shanktelli and producing only models that fall within the Maestro’s original guidelines.

First off will be the Sleezedagger based off of Santelli’s original sleeve dagger design that was sent into the field. Designed with an epee blade all of the power is in the point. You’d be hard up to do better for penetration.

Deploy, Dispatch, Deny

Much, much more to come.