Skip to content
Collecting · Since 1985 · Pattada, Sardinia

Collecting: the philosophy of a maison.

Numbered pieces. Made to commission. A forge that has never left Pattada since 1985, and a museum founded to safeguard a craft. The grammar of the great maisons, applied to the knife.

There is a grammar the great houses of luxury have codified over two centuries — the ones the world recognises without need of introduction. Seven traits: progressive numbering, limited editions, work to commission, noble materials, family heritage, a museum of one's own, work done entirely by hand.

In the world of knives, in Italy, only one family applies that grammar in full. The Giagu family, in Pattada. Forty years of unbroken forging, under the same roof, with the same signature.

It is not a marketing choice. It is the way Salvatore and Maria Rosaria opened the workshop in 1985, and the way Adriano and Letizia run it today alongside them. Every piece recorded, every client known by name, every commission a dialogue.

What follows is the manifesto of Giagu collecting. Seven traits — plus one that concerns time.

The seven traits

The shared grammar

01
Progressive numbering
Every Giagu blade is engraved with the mouflon mark and the words GIAGU PATTADA. Each client is recorded with a progressive number that identifies them in the maison's archive. Some models (the patented ones, Culter, the Corrinas, for instance) are numbered in sequence, marking the piece forever on the paper certificate and in the internal registers from 1985 onward.
02
Limited editions
When the maison opens an anniversary edition, it sets the maximum number before the forging begins. Forty years of the workshop, forty-one pieces for the 40th edition — one for each year passed, plus one beyond the series. Once they are gone, the run closes forever.
03
To commission
A Giagu knife is not bought from a cart: it is commissioned. Whoever wishes a piece writes to the maison: from the moment the order is confirmed, between six and twelve months pass before your knife is ready, depending on model and materials.
04
Noble materials
Special Damascus steel, hand-folded. 18kt gold worked in Sardinian filigree. Mouflon horn, fossil ivory, stag horn, centuries-old olive, mother-of-pearl, Mediterranean coral, Sardinian silver. These are the materials of classic collecting, applied to Italian artisan knife-making.
05
Family heritage
The maison has existed since 1985, under the same roof, with the same signature. Founded by Salvatore Giagu and Maria Rosaria Deroma — Italy's first female knife-maker. Today run by their children: Adriano and Letizia, the second generation, at the same forge.
06
A museum of its own
In 2011 the family founded the Museo Culter of Pattada — the first international knife museum in Italy. Fifteen years ago the maison chose to protect and hand on a craft by establishing a cultural institution of its own. The inaugural exhibition of 1995 had already drawn fifteen thousand visitors.
07
Work done entirely by hand
No machine stands in for the knife-maker. Forging, filing, seating the handle, engraving the mark, finishing the edge — all by hand, eight months at the least per piece, up to fourteen for the most elaborate commissions. The fire does not hurry, because that is how we want it.
To commission

The maison's
waiting list.

A Giagu knife is not bought from a cart: it is commissioned. Whoever wishes a piece writes to the maison — a phone call, an email, a visit to Pattada. Every piece, quite simply, begins with a conversation, and has for forty years.

From request to delivery, six to twelve months pass depending on the model: this is the time of the commission — the dialogue, the choice of model and materials.

Materials

Materials
that last centuries.

Damascus steel. 18kt gold in Sardinian filigree. Selected mouflon horn. Fossil mammoth ivory, stag horn, centuries-old olive. Mother-of-pearl, Mediterranean coral, Sardinian silver. These are materials chosen to outlast those who commission them — and that is the threshold that separates an object from a collector’s piece.

A museum of its own

The museum
as proof.

The Museo Culter of Pattada was founded by the Giagu family in 2011: the first international knife museum in Italy. It gathers blades from the five continents and three centuries of Sardinian pastoral tools, alongside the maison's own production.

Certificate + warranty

What stays
with the knife.

Every Giagu piece comes with a paper certificate signed by hand: model, materials, date of delivery, name of the commissioner. And behind the certificate stands the maison’s archive, where every commission has been recorded from 1985 onward: a Giagu piece can be verified forever — who commissioned it, when, with which materials. The warranty is ten years. Sharpening, free, is for life. The knife, forever.

Write to us

To begin
a conversation.

A letter, an email, a phone call. Here begins the commission of your knife — and your collection.

Begin the conversation →