Big Souvenir
Hi Chris Evans,
You may be right about your tourist suspicions but a 13.25” blade seems a bit hefty for a souvenir. Especially when compared to the so called vendetta folding knives made in Theirs for sale to tourists in Corsica. I doubt any of those knives had blades longer than six inches. I agree that the level of workmanship on the Santa Cruz de Mudela knives isn’t very high but it is no worse than what is typically seen on 19th to early 20th century penny knives sold in the US. My navaja is certainly very rickety now but it is probably well over 100 years old (maybe even 200 or more years old). When it was new however, I bet it would have been sturdy enough for a knife fight. I certainly would trust a carraca lock over the slip joint lock on a fancy French Navaja and so did the French because their early WWI trench knife was a palm knife with a teat lock and a ring pull. Consider this scenario. These SCM navaja weren’t meant to be tools and, were probably only very rarely used for fighting. Their main purpose was to add a bit of macho swagger to the costume of men with little money. I am sure they were also sold to tourists but I would bet that their main market was domestic.
Sincerely,
RobT
|