Unusual Bulgarian Knife

[DOMENICO]

Originally Posted by eftihis

Hallo, here is a silver example, but i cannot tell if it comes from a specific country.
What is very interesting is the ending of the handle where we can see a lion holding an open book, an image that reminds me very much Venice.
Propably then, it comes from an area of the Balkans that was once under venetian domination or influence, and this design just continued to be made because of habit even in the 19th century under Ottoman domination.

Good day, I have found a similar knife in a farm in France many years ago, but this has a brass handle. The decoration are pretty similar though.
See pictures attached. Brgds. Andrea

[kronckew]

Similar small folders were used to score the seed pods of opium poppys.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by kronckew

Similar small folders were used to score the seed pods of opium poppys.

Does this knife fully open or does it stay sickle like to aid in the scoring/scraping process? Interesting in that I had heard that a piece of glass was preferred for the scoring. Maybe a status thing, or that glass was at one point hard to come by.

[gp]

although most of these are short ( hence giving them to boys), there are also "mature" ones. Like this example from my collection 27 cm long

[gp]

and here is another one....

to make it more international and more interesting;

the name on the blade

Sorbas...

is a village in Almeria Spain; but we can ignore that with regard to this type of knife!

Sorbas? I hear you think...
wasn't that the name of.....
what was that chap's name again....?
Yes...
Alexander Sorbas or Zorba ; Αλέξη Ζορμπά
Written by the most famous Cypriot Nikos Kazantzakis !

Then again.. Zorba wasn't Greek...he was also not even a fictional person but actual a real existing one : a Makedonian
(and met Nikos on Mount Athos where Zorba was a monk after quite an interesting life that inspired Nikos to write the novel;
Sorbas / Zorba never actually set a foot on Cyprus).

Back to the knife ( before Bulgars and Greek chase me with the cat o'nine tails over the Makedonian issue ):

what it comes down it that this specific knife might vary in size but actually was found in the past in the Balkans from what we call now from Croatia down to to Greece and Bulgaria, with Bosnia, Serbia, Makedonia in between and nowadays still in Turkey ( Bursa).

This one, not in my possension but some one I know, might be made somewhere between 1950 - 1960 ( perhaps a little later even)
Dimensions : 21,6 cm (open), 9,5 cm (blade), 12,1 cm (grip/handle), material : goat horn