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Originally Posted by laEspadaAncha
Actually, the knives we associate with clip-point Sheffield hunting knives were Bowie knives.
By 1838, newspaper reports immortalizing both Jim Bowie (already partially immortalized from published accounts of the "Sandbar fight" a decade earlier), Davy Crockett, and the rest of the Texans who died at the Alamo resulted in a new market for a knife "like Jim Bowie's." In the wake of this sudden surge in interest, widely circulated newspaper accounts described Bowie's knife as a large, straight-bladed single-edged knife of roughly 12 inches in length with a guard and a clip-point.
By 1850, the existing demand for Bowie knives, along with the demand for frontier knives following the Gold Rush, had surpassed the production capacity of the cottage industry of American cutlers. Producers in Sheffield were more than happy to meet the new demand in the American market and began producing Bowie knives in earnest. I am yet to encounter a Sheffield Bowie knife of what we now accept as the "classic" form - in person or in print - that predates this period of mass export by Sheffield cutlers, and given the two-decade old pedigree on which this form was based, would refer to all clip-point, single-bladed Sheffield hunters/skinner from the period as Bowie knives.  |
Chris, absolutely beautifully written on the Sheffield/ Bowie heritage of these knives!!!
This is exactly what I always hope for on the weapons posted in these forums, great historic detail beyond the typology and physical condition notes. Nice perspective added to observing this interesting knife and the nice example posted by Gene.
All the best,
Jim