Based in Maniago, Italy, LionSteel is a boutique knife brand that specializes in producing a huge variety of high-end, handcrafted blades — from EDC folders to karambits to integrals to fixed blades. Routinely working with some of the finest materials available, the company consistently delivers a level of craftsmanship that’s beyond impressive.
In addition to churning out its own blades, LionSteel also manufactures knives for a handful of other eminent brands in need of top-notch build quality. One such outfit is Spyderco, which has been teaming up with LionSteel for well-over-a-decade now. A huge part of what makes these knives so cool in our opinion, is the fact that they often feature design language from both brands rather than just seeing LionSteel make one of Spyderco’s designs. Dubbed the SpyNano, their latest joint effort wonderfully demonstrates just how beautifully the two’s design cues can merge.
Giving It The Spyderco Treatment
The SpyNano’s design — and name — stems from LionSteel taking its Nano knife and giving it the Spyderco treatment. As such, the thing sees Spyderco integrate one of its hallmark thumb-hole openers onto the Nano’s existing drop point profile, taking the place of the Nano’s front and rear fuller notches. The billet titanium clip on the Nano has also been jettisoned in favor of one of Spyderco’s signature pressed steel clip — a bit of a downgrade if we’re being honest, but still a cool collaborative touch, and one that makes it a bit more of a Spyderco in our eyes.
A Single Handle Option
The Nano is normally offered in several full titanium variants, and a few versions with Micarta show-sides and titanium frame-lock off-sides — plus there’s a model with a carbon show side. For the SpyNano, Spyderco has locked ion on the green Micarta show-side version, which is hard to knock them for. The handle is otherwise mostly identical to the Nano, sporting the same angular design and machining pattern on the off-side. Alongside Lionsteel’s geometric handle design, the knife also maintains LionSteel’s signature removable flipper tab.
Hard Numbers
The SpyNano clocks in at 6.24” — 2.56” of which is comprised of the hollow-ground blade. This makes it just a tad shorter than the 6.375-inch Nano and its 2.75-inch blade. The good news is the blade is slightly beefier at 0.15” versus the Nano’s 0.13-inch-thick blade. This also makes the SpyNano a negligible 0.1oz lighter at 2.90oz. All in all, the knife’s 2.5” of blade is plenty for the vast majority of EDC tasks, and with its blade thickness, it can likely stand up to most hard-use tasks, too. It’s also immensely pocketable, with its handling measuring only 3.68” long — sure, not the best blade-to-handle ratio, but this is by no means a deal-breaker as we’d argue this is still a terrific everyday carry option.
Another Changes Made In Colorado
Spyderco has also opted to swap out the Nanio’s CPM Magnacut steel for Böhler M398 powder metallurgy stainless steel. Though it’s somewhat brittle — at least compared to the Crucible steel — the Böhler steel is admittedly great and holds an edge extraordinarily well, though I’d much rather sharpen MagnaCut — which also holds an edge exceptionally well.
An Italian-Made Limited Edition Spyderco
Made by hand in Italy, the knife is part of one of Spyderco’s Flash Batches, which consist of small-production runs of never-before-seen knives, all of which come individually serialized subtly hit with a laser engraving. Because it’s Spyderco, they’re calling the frame lock a Reeve Integral Lock, and that’s fine, it technically is. So, while we do know it will be produced in very limited numbers, Spyderco hasn’t cited an exact figure — we assume a few hundred. Despite this, the knife still has a pretty reasonable price point.
Why We Love It
If you’ve been following the knife coverage on this site over the last year or two, you’ll quickly notice both Spyderco and Lionsteel appear on an almost disproportionate amount of our best knife guides. So it probably won’t come as a surprise to hear that we’re always really excited when these two brands come together — their collabs have even appeared on our best knives lists. There have been a decent number of collaborations between the two companies, but they’re still rare enough for us to get excited about — plus they’ve always resulted in some fantastic knives. Case in point: the SpyNano.
Spec Sheet
Brand: Spyderco
Manufacturer: LionSteel
Manufacturing Origin: Italy
Model: SpyNano
Overall Length: 6.24”
Blade Length: 2.56”
Blade Thickness: 0.15”
Blade Steel: Böhler M398
Blade Deployment: Thumb-Hole & (Removable) Flipper Tab
Handle Material: Micarta (Show-Side) & Titanium (Off-Side)
Locking Mechanism: Reeve Integral Lock (Frame Lock)
Weight: 2.90oz
MSRP: $315
Pricing & Availability
The Spyderco (x LionSteel) SpyNano Flash Batch has an MSRP of $315 — though is available now on Blade HQ with pricing set at $236. This makes it only $26 more expensive than the green Micarta Nano, which is pretty cool considering this is a Flash Batch model.
Recap
Spyderco x LionsSteel SpyNano Flash Batch
Spyderco has taken LionSteel’s Nano knife and given it a few of the American brand’s signature touches in order to produce a limited-edition, Italian-made EDC knife appropriately dubbed the SpyNano.
