Gifts for dads are tough. Guy gifts just sort of blend together in a sort of golf-flavored, grill-smokey haze of shave-kit blandness. You can do better.
How about this? A knife with tattoos.
Deejo makes gift-priced and premium ultralight knives you can customize with dozens of artistic, laser-cut blade graphics and handle material combinations. Like totally customize. Like you pick the finish, you pick the handle wood, you pick the length, and you pick the engraved blade designs. And you get the knife in less than a week.
And the blade designs are awesome. By my count, there were 84 to chose from, ranging from nature-porn to motorhead motifs. Check these out:
There’s a specific designs collection for outdoor geeks like us. Here are some of the highlights:
Most of the Deejo knives are extremely light–ranging from 0.5 to 1.3 ounces–and very thin and pocket-friendly. They are designed for effortless everyday carry without taking up much space in your pocket or on a belt. The steel comes in three finishes–a polished mirror, matte grey titanium and a black titanium.
The handles come in a range of colored and stained woods, as well a range of Skittles-toned plastic colors.
The prices vary depending on your combination but generally range in the $45 – $70 zone.
For big spenders, there’s the splurge-ready Deejo “Exception Collection”, like the $450 Damascus-steel Snakewood handle combo below:
There’s also the big-boy Deejo Black 390g Olive Wood with Art Deco pattern, with a 7.4 inch blade ($230).
You can have the company engrave 35 characters of custom text to the base of the handle, which, mercifully, is enough room to say: “Happy Father’s Day 2019 u old fart!”
If you want to write a longer or more personalized message to Dad, there’s a cool engraving kit that will run you $160. You can have the whole family sign.
The classic Deejo knives come in three sizes. The largest is a 3.7-inch blade (4.3 inches closed) and weighs 1.3 ounces. The blade is easily long enough to sub-in for a steak knife in a pinch, although at its length, it’s a bit more comfortable to have on a belt than in a pocket when you sit.
The smallest, lightest, and most pocket-friendly weighs half an ounce and has a 2.7-inch blade.
The blades all feature an easy-to-operate frame-locking mechanism and an elongated drop-point shape. The designs are all laser engraved and permanent. You can get the knives “naked”–without the handle piece–if you want the design to continue on down the handle. And you can customize any particular design or style you want.
I found the Deejo customization and ordering interface and ordering experience to be really smooth. The blade selection tool is intuitive and lets you mix and match blade combination’s easily and save your ideas.
Here’s what my knife looked like before I ordered it:
Deejo promises to ship in less than 48 hours. I ordered late on a Friday, the knife shipped on the following Tuesday, and was in my hands two days later.
The blade is low profile and slim enough to wear in the city discretely and without feeling like it fills up your pocket. The slimness means it’s a little less ergonomic in the hands but that’s fine–this is not the knife you’ll be doing heavy chopping tasks with. The smaller ones probably double as a nice money clip.
I am not usually a knife carrying kind of guy, but I found myself bringing the Deejo with me a lot more because it feels so personalized. The juniper wood and topo design I picked bring back memories I won’t bore you with but which I like keeping close to me. Picking the design makes this knife feel like less like a knife and more like a piece of you.
Choose wisely, and your dad will probably feel the same way.