Hi Everybody,
Ypoznan; Pleased to make your acquaintance on this forum. I have read your many excellent posts on the Spanish forum and visited your equally outstanding website, my only regret being that I do not speak Polish. Nice to see a fellow navaja enthusiast here.
Fernando: Regarding ancient folding knives, I am out of my depth and into guess-work territory. Those of us that can access the Spanish writings have all read the standard works on the subject and I, for one, find it hard to add anything concrete. With Ypozna's knife we are into archeology!
I am inclined to think that the concept of a folding knife is so simple that it musty have been known for a very, very long time. As for actual clasp knives, with some sort of blade affixing mechanism in the open position, I go with Forton, namely that it is a post 1700s development, but only for lack of convincing evidence to the contrary. By the Renaissance, lockwork mechanisms were so highly developed, just look at gun wheelocks, that it was more than possible to make a clasp knife, it's just that we haven't been presented with a reliably dated specimen.
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Originally Posted by fernando
I wonder what Navaja enthusiasts like Chris Evans think about this piece.
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Exactly what the author said; Navaja de afeitar? (razor?) Too hard to tell, especially without being able to handle the specimen. I often wondered what poor folk in the olden days used to shave with and a roughly made razor, akin to the one shown would have fitted the role well. After all, even a well sharpened pocket knife will allow one to shave, albeit not pleasantly. All that is needed is a very thin edge, which need not extend too far up. This thin edge would have been lost with the passing of time, rendering positive identification impossible, unless the rest of the blade was also too thin for other applications.
Edit: An afterthought. When closed, the handle would have made contact with the edge, hardly ideal for a shaving razor, even if lined with soft leather or such like.
Cheers
Chris