In 1991, six years after opening the workshop on Via Vittorio Emanuele, Salvatore Giagu and Maria Rosaria Deroma registered seven original models in Rome. In the world of knives this is a rare gesture: shapes are inherited, handed down, sometimes copied. These patented Sardinian knives took another path: seven new designs, registered so that it would remain written where those shapes were born.
Thirty-five years later, the seven patents are still in production, still made on commission, still made here alone.
Why a workshop registers a patent
An ornamental patent protects a design. But the true meaning of that filing was not defensive: it was a declaration. Each of the seven shapes is a precise tribute to one aspect of the island, its fauna, its sea, its wind, its flora, its history, its interlace. Read together, they tell Sardinia the way those who live there know it.
Those were also the years in which the workshop was making its name: four years after the filing, in 1995, the first International Custom Knife Exhibition would bring fifteen thousand visitors to Pattada. The seven patents came first, as a statement of intent.
One thing sets the patents apart from everything else the workshop makes: every piece is numbered, one by one, and no piece repeats another's combination of materials. They are not closed editions: they are living models, made here for thirty-five years, one knife at a time.
Seven shapes, one for each soul of the island
Seven filings for six inspirations: the past, with the Antico, was given two.
Muflone, the fauna
A dagger with a 20-centimetre blade, double grind and false edge along the spine. The guard is worked to recreate the head of the Sardinian mouflon, an endemic presence of the island's mountains: free and elusive, like the material combinations of each piece, never the same twice. It is the Muflone, the forefather.
Antico, the past (two patents)
As early as the 1800s, in northern Sardinia, a wider blade lived alongside the resolza, shaped "like a laurel leaf": the knife the shepherd carried at his side for hunting. The Antico brings it back to life with two separate patents, fixed blade and folding: the same identity, with the pronounced choil at the base of the blade and finishes reaching fossil ivory and the gold filigree of Sardinian master goldsmiths.
Onde, the sea
Sardinia has almost two thousand kilometres of coastline. The Onde patent is the homage to that world: a wide, 12.5-centimetre fixed blade and a sinuous handle, modelled by hand on the curve of a wave. A movement you do not just see: you feel it under your fingers.
Foglia, the flora
The Mediterranean macchia is an endless catalogue of leaves, and the Foglia, a folding knife with a 9-centimetre blade, declares it in its profile: the design of the leaf becomes the very shape of blade and handle. The materials follow nature too, with horn and wood tones chosen to echo its colours.
Elica, the wind
From the coasts to the heights, the wind accompanies the island all year round. The Elica holds its movement still: a shape recalling blades turned by the wind, a folding knife with a 12.5-centimetre double-ground point and an ergonomic handle, made to sit in the hand as it should.
Torciglione, the interlace
Technically the most complex patent of the maison. The handle, entirely carved by hand, takes up the motif of the traditional Sardinian interlace: the one found in the costume's fabrics, in baskets, in sweets and bread. A form Sardinia has handed down for centuries, here become a knife: the Torciglione, a folding knife with a 12 or 16 centimetre blade.
What it means for those who collect Sardinian knives
Those who know the story of the Pattada resolza know that here, shapes are refined generation after generation. The seven patents are the chapter our family added to that story: shapes that did not exist before, and that exist in one workshop in the world.
For a collector this means three things. First: no one else may make them. Second: every piece is numbered and never repeats another's materials, so each knife is an original within an original. Third: they are commissioned like everything that leaves this workshop, through a dialogue of six to twelve months and entry into the registry where commissions have been kept since 1985. And every patent leaves the workshop with the maison's handwritten certificate: model, materials, date, the name of its owner.
Where a collection begins
There is no starting order. Each of the seven patented Sardinian knives tells a story of its own: the wildlife in the Muflone, the past in the Antico, the sea in the Onde, the leaf in the Foglia, the wind in the Elica, the weave in the Torciglione. Collectors begin from affinity: the right patent is the one that speaks to the person looking at it. From there, many build the full series of seven forms over the years, a path the workshop registry has documented, commission after commission, since 1985.
Every specimen enters the archive with its number, its combination of materials and the name of the person who commissioned it: this is how a private collection stays bound, forever, to the story of the workshop.
The seven shapes can be met up close in the 1991 Patents collection, and in person in our showroom in Pattada. Sardinia, here, is not a decorative motif: it is the raw material of the design.
Frequently asked questions
What are the Giagu patented knives?
Seven original filings registered in Rome in 1991 by the Giagu family: the Muflone, the Antico in its two versions (fixed blade and folding), the Onde, the Foglia, the Elica and the Torciglione. Each shape is a tribute to one aspect of Sardinia, from its fauna to its wind to the traditional interlace, and is made exclusively in the Pattada workshop.
Are the Giagu patents numbered?
Yes. Unlike the classic production, every piece of the seven patents is numbered one by one and is born with a combination of materials that is never repeated. It enters the workshop registry, accompanied by the maison's certificate.
Can the patented models still be commissioned?
Yes: they are living models, in production since 1991. They are made on commission, in six to twelve months, choosing materials and finishes in dialogue with the family.
Which patent should a collection start from?
There is no right order: each of the seven forms has a soul of its own, and the choice is a matter of affinity between the knife and the person who welcomes it. Every piece is numbered, enters the workshop registry, and can become the first step toward the complete series.
