Ragweed Forge (https://ragweedforge.com/)
Ragweed Forge has been a favorite of mine for decades. “Ragnar” imports “user” knives from Northern Europe, where the knife culture is about good steel and practicality, not about tactical looks… or cosmetics in general.
He has a fine selection, is always pleasant to deal with (we’ve had a few long email exchanges over the decades), and although he is facing more and more competition on some models from much larger retailers, he still often has the best price and is often the only place I’ve been able to find certain knives in the US. I’ve never been disappointed or had any reason to disagree with what he’s said about any of them. No, I have no financial connection with him at all.
PLEASE NOTE if you’re not going to use this link, recently his site has only worked with the “https://” prefix on the URL, as in “https://ragweedforge.com/”, not with “http://”. For some reason “ragweedforge.com” and “ragweedforge” typed in no longer find it. Hopefully that will be corrected soon.
– Robert the Wombat
A VERY SAD AND VERY LATE UPDATE:
I was of course greatly saddened to learn of the death of my old email correspondent Ragnar of Ragweed Forge. We didn’t really know each other, and to be honest I’m not sure how aware he was that I was the same person he’d had several conversations with (no doubt he had hundreds of similar conversations), but we had a lot of interests in common. We had discussions about knives, tempering, blacksmithing in general, available finished knife blades, grinds, sharpening techniques and tools, carry methods, Thor’s hammers, penannular broaches, fibular broaches, and on and on. I remember he was very interested when I’d had the opportunity to visit the traveling Vikings exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution and he wanted to know a lot of details about what I had seen there. I learned a lot from him, and I have no doubt that a whole lot of other people did as well. I know they did- his website article on various knife grinds alone was very widely read and influential.
I became aware of his passing just as I was in the midst of selling the house I’ve lived in for 25 years, followed by buying another house far away, both experiences that were far, far more complex, difficult and aggravating than I was prepared for. Now, at this writing, I’ve hit what might be a lull before the actual move, and many things that have happened over this period are coming to the forefront, and I’m trying to catch up. He will be greatly missed. He is greatly missed.
There is at least a glimmer of good news, the website is being perpetuated, and seems to be in capable hands. Toward the end “Ragnar” had some problems keeping things going, stock fell low and there were webpage issues, all more than understandable, but all such seem to have been rectified, the stock has been replenished and even new lines of merchandise introduced, and the new operators seem to understand that price was a critical factor in its success, all the more so now when there are dozens of sources for things like Nordic knives, and, following the success of a TV series, probably a hundred sources of “Viking” stuff, especially jewelry, which is one of the things that used to be almost unique to Ragweed Forge. I’m encouraged and wish them the best going forward, I have no doubt I will still be a customer.
Also, you no longer have to type in “https” to get into the website, that has been resolved.
https://www.ragweedforge.com/
– Robert the Wombat