Dew Hara's Suisei is one of the better-looking designs WE has produced in the last two years, and this trim — WE25086-4 — is the one that pushes the price to $527 by wrapping the blade and handle in timascus.
The bones: 7.83 inches overall, 3.28-inch reverse tanto in Bohler M390 at 59 to 61 HRC, 0.13 inch stock, hollow grind, polished bead blasted and flamed finish, M390 with a timascus inlay in the blade itself. The handle is 6AL4V titanium with a timascus inlay, flamed backspacer, nested stainless liner lock, caged ceramic ball bearings, tip-up right-hand titanium clip, 3.88 ounces (110 grams) at 0.5 inch thick.
Timascus is where the money goes. It is a forged laminate of two titanium alloys that takes colour differently when anodised, so the surface shows a layered, shifting pattern that cannot be printed or coated onto steel. On this knife it appears three times: an inlay in the blade, an inlay in the handle, and the pivot collar area. That is a lot of material for the price — timascus is normally reserved for knives well north of $700 — but it also means the blade is no longer a plain piece of M390 you can judge purely as a cutting tool.
The reverse tanto is the functional argument. It gives you a long straight edge for slicing with a sudden point at the tip, which is why it has become the default shape for knives that need to look aggressive and still work well. Combined with a hollow grind at 0.13 inch, the Suisei should cut cleanly through cardboard and rope, and the 110-gram weight on a 3.28-inch blade is right in the pocket-carry sweet spot.
Whether $527 is fair depends on which question you are answering. As a cutting tool it is expensive: the same M390 and the same nested liner lock are available from WE for well under $300 without timascus. As an object it is not unreasonable — inlaid timascus on both blade and handle, a named designer in Dew Hara, and a weight and geometry that actually work for daily carry. The comparison that hurts is WE's own $675 Varg in Fafnir Damasteel: for $148 more you get a fully patterned Damasteel blade rather than an M390 blade with a timascus patch.
Verdict: the best-dressed Suisei, and a legitimate way into timascus without jumping to the Varg. Buy it because the pattern is what you want to look at every day. Do not buy it expecting the money to show up in cutting performance.
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