Wick Ellerbe said:
Cheers. :v
How does a Bowie differ from other large knives?
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Cheers. :v
FWIW, this is the version I find most plausible and most resembling the bits and pieces of various versions I have heard over the years.
http://arkansasroadstories.com/bowie.html
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50cal.cliff
58 Cal.
OK I read your piece you posted Rifleman. Look at the bottom to the update:
Third line and I quote:
There's a knife known to have come from Black's shop that has the words "Bowie no. 1" engraved on it. It's got a long, heavy blade and a sharpened clip, but unlike the classic bowie, it has an offset coffin handle with silver rivets. Black made lots of knives over the years with offset coffin handles and silver rivets. That was his typical style. What are the chances that Bowie's design would reflect Black's typical style AND that Black's modified design would be done in an atypical style?
Sounds kind of like he is describing this to me!
:stir: :stir: :idunno: :rotf:
Nothing personal I really ain't got a dog in this fight. I am just having fun. The difference in a Bowie and other large knives a lot of history, tall tales and water under the bridge.
At least we can agree that they have a place in history, and it was a knife that really was made with a purpose! Fright, or fight!
In other words when you wheeled out a Bowie you meant to stand your ground with all comers!
Now days I see these abominations the have no resemblance to a Bowie but because the name has sold knives for all these years!
There are folks out there with no morals at all that feel free to attach to anything they think will make them a buck!
Third line and I quote:
There's a knife known to have come from Black's shop that has the words "Bowie no. 1" engraved on it. It's got a long, heavy blade and a sharpened clip, but unlike the classic bowie, it has an offset coffin handle with silver rivets. Black made lots of knives over the years with offset coffin handles and silver rivets. That was his typical style. What are the chances that Bowie's design would reflect Black's typical style AND that Black's modified design would be done in an atypical style?
Sounds kind of like he is describing this to me!
:stir: :stir: :idunno: :rotf:
Nothing personal I really ain't got a dog in this fight. I am just having fun. The difference in a Bowie and other large knives a lot of history, tall tales and water under the bridge.
At least we can agree that they have a place in history, and it was a knife that really was made with a purpose! Fright, or fight!
In other words when you wheeled out a Bowie you meant to stand your ground with all comers!
Now days I see these abominations the have no resemblance to a Bowie but because the name has sold knives for all these years!
There are folks out there with no morals at all that feel free to attach to anything they think will make them a buck!
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A tale more of folklore than fact. My question is, if Black made "thousands" of knives and his mark was well known. Where is this mark, and where are these thousands of knives? The only Black marked knife I know of is The Moore Bowie, and it was reported as proven to be a fake a few years ago, though I never read how that was determined.
Me too. :grin:
That '#1' knife has started more arguments and fights in Arkansas than politiks.
Can be put on anything. I know a feller that has the original crooked 'S' stamp from the Hawken brothers shop. That doesn't make a rifle he puts it on an authentic Hawken.
Zim, this knife of yours is defined by modern knifemakers as a camp knife.The commercial/one-man knife maker/designers as having the classic cutout swoop up around the tip. Many also define "Bowie" also with the cross guard as being curved off in opposing directions. Bowies are not a field of interest to me. They are a big knife, too big for my uses.
Bones
Bones
Just want to say how proud I am of all who have posted in this thread. In spite of major disagreements, you have all remained civil.
And Cliff, that line about the only thing you take seriously is your relationship with God is one of the wisest things I have read in some time.
:hatsoff:
And Cliff, that line about the only thing you take seriously is your relationship with God is one of the wisest things I have read in some time.
:hatsoff:
The "Bowie" knife issue comes up from time to time. I think there is really a two sided aspect to this. The first is trying to figure out what was the "original" knife used by James Bowie in his famous Sandbar duel. A lot of folks research this and there is some confusion on what he did or did not use. There are some very early "Bowie" knives that are, or may have been, assoicated with Jim Bowie.
But there is also the second side to this issue, very quickly after all the press releases about the famous fight, there arose a demand for "Bowie" knives and a lot of styles started getting produced. A lot of these were made in Sheffield England and they were being made in the 1830's and were called "Bowie Knives" so.... A Bowie knife can be what Jim Bowie used; or, it can also be what was made in the 1830's and called a "Bowie" knife- both are historically correct. A lot of the pre-1840 "Bowie" knives (that had nothing to do with Jim Bowie) are what you would expect, a big blade 10" or more, usually a clip point. A guard with quillions.
But there is also the second side to this issue, very quickly after all the press releases about the famous fight, there arose a demand for "Bowie" knives and a lot of styles started getting produced. A lot of these were made in Sheffield England and they were being made in the 1830's and were called "Bowie Knives" so.... A Bowie knife can be what Jim Bowie used; or, it can also be what was made in the 1830's and called a "Bowie" knife- both are historically correct. A lot of the pre-1840 "Bowie" knives (that had nothing to do with Jim Bowie) are what you would expect, a big blade 10" or more, usually a clip point. A guard with quillions.
We must be slipping in our old age.
Well, as I said, it is a two sided issue. The first was WHAT Jim Bowie actually used. This could be what he used in the sandbar fight- it was supposed to have had a 9" blade with a straight back;or, what type of large knife Bowie might have carried at later dates. There are several possibles on that. And, then the big knives labeled "Bowies" that are actually period correct but although called "Bowies" had no connection at all with Jim Bowie. If a Sheffield "Bowie" made in 1830 was called a "Bowie" in 1830, but had no connection with Jim Bowie, then it is a "Bowie" (to me) but not the original Bowie carried by Jim Bowie- if that makes sense. In any event if such an 1830 Sheffield Knife meets your fancy, it seems to me it can be carried and called a Bowie since such was the case at the time.
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To ALL:
Let me "toss the cat among the pigeons": The ONLY knife PROVEN to have belonged to either Bowie brother is at the HAM & it's a 6' double-edged dagger that once belonged to Rezin. - Therefore, even that dagger is legitimately: a BOWIE KNIFE.
(I'm "in the camp of": Any big fighting knife can be called "a Bowie", if larger than a paring knife & shorter than a sword.)
The movie that was mentioned here was THE IRON MISTRESS, starring ALAN LADD, from 1952. - It was also in color, rather than B&W.
(Audie Murphy turned down the lead role in the movie, as he stated that, "I'm not fit to play a brave Texan like Colonel Bowie. - You need to find someone who is more worthy than me." ===> Audie Murphy, who held the MoH, was an HUMBLE man.)
BTW, my mother taught Audie (freshman English) and his sisters (Home Economics) in their high school days.
(One of her treasured possessions is a "Christmas letter" that he sent her in 1945.= She keeps it in her Bible, that is on her nightstand.)
yours, satx
Let me "toss the cat among the pigeons": The ONLY knife PROVEN to have belonged to either Bowie brother is at the HAM & it's a 6' double-edged dagger that once belonged to Rezin. - Therefore, even that dagger is legitimately: a BOWIE KNIFE.
(I'm "in the camp of": Any big fighting knife can be called "a Bowie", if larger than a paring knife & shorter than a sword.)
The movie that was mentioned here was THE IRON MISTRESS, starring ALAN LADD, from 1952. - It was also in color, rather than B&W.
(Audie Murphy turned down the lead role in the movie, as he stated that, "I'm not fit to play a brave Texan like Colonel Bowie. - You need to find someone who is more worthy than me." ===> Audie Murphy, who held the MoH, was an HUMBLE man.)
BTW, my mother taught Audie (freshman English) and his sisters (Home Economics) in their high school days.
(One of her treasured possessions is a "Christmas letter" that he sent her in 1945.= She keeps it in her Bible, that is on her nightstand.)
yours, satx
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Now days, people refer to a "Bowie Knife" as a style, not necessarily a particular knife belonging to Bowie. He may have owned a skinning or kitchen knife too, but that's not what people call a "Bowie style". But, I think you know that?satx78247 said:
It's always intrigued me that so much MBBW gets handed around about Jim Bowie's knife, especially since the mid-20th century when the book "The Iron Mistress" and the rather fictional TV series made the rounds. In actual fact, we've known what the knife looked like since 1899 when Noah Smithwick wrote, or rather dictated, his book "Recollections of Old Texas Days" (later retitled: The Evolution of a State). Smithwick was a blacksmith by trade and knew Bowie in Texas from 1828. After an account of the Sandbar Fight as given him by Bowie, Smithwick continues,"the blood christened weapon which had saved it's owner's life twice within a few seconds, was an ordinary affair with a plain wooded handle, but when Bowie recovered from his wound he had the precious blade polished and set into an ivory handle mounted with silver; the scabbard also being silver mounted. Not wishing to degrade it by ordinary use, he brought the knife to me at San Felipe to have a duplicate made. The blade was about ten inches long and two broad at the widest point. When it became known that I was making a genuine Bowie knife, there was a great demand for them, so I cut a pattern and started a factory, my jobs bringing all the way from $5.00 to $20.00, according to finish."
This was a pretty fair price considering how scarce cash was in Texas at that period. And Smithwick's 'factory' appears to be two helpers at his smithy. Fast forward 120 years.
My good friend Charlie Eckhardt had the good fortune to see and handle one of these Smithwick knives in the 1950's. He also had the presence of mind to measure and record the knife's exact dimensions. In a chapter entitled "Jim Bowie's Elusive Knife" from his entertaining book "Texas Tales Your Teacher Never Told You", Charlie noted the following:
"In the 1950's one of them-possibly the Smithwick/Juan Seguin Bowie- was in the possession of a collector named John R. Norris, who lived on Castle Hill Drive in Austin. In 1953, in a one-room house made of heavy logs in which Mr. Norris housed his collection...I was permitted to examine and measure the knife.
"The Smithwick Bowie in Mr. Norris' possession had a blade ten and one-half inches long, two inches wide and a quarter inch thick.The clip or "gut-tickler" was three inches long and perfectly straight, not dished. The point was at the center of the blade. It had neither fuller nor ricasso. Knife folks know that a fuller is the so-called "blood groove" in the blade, which has all sorts of fanciful explanations for existing. In fact, it helps stiffen the blade, in exactly the same manner that a T-shaped bar of iron is stiffer than a flat bar. The ricasso is that little piece between the hilt and the blade that isn't sharpened and usually has the knife-maker's trademark on it.
"It had a perfectly straight iron crossguard, a full tang and a grip made of two pieces of light colored wood-possibly bois d' arc (Osage Orange or "Hossapple")-which was fastened with two large rivets. The blade was marked near the guard with a large spread eagle and N.SMITHWICK in capital letters in a semicircle over the eagle. The dimensions of the Smithwick Bowie are identical to the dimensions Wellman gave for the knife in "The Iron Mistress", which leads me to believe that he probably saw and measured a Smithwick Bowie in the research for the book."
I've known Charlie over 35 years now and this version to the oral versions I've heard him state several times in that period. There are very few Smithwick marked knives in private collections now, and our chances of finding another are rare. If my scanner weren't on the 'fritz', I'd upload the illustration from the book. Your local library can probably get a copy for anyone to view. I just wish some enterprising knifemaker would copy the pattern exactly and put an end to all the speculation about what and how.
This was a pretty fair price considering how scarce cash was in Texas at that period. And Smithwick's 'factory' appears to be two helpers at his smithy. Fast forward 120 years.
My good friend Charlie Eckhardt had the good fortune to see and handle one of these Smithwick knives in the 1950's. He also had the presence of mind to measure and record the knife's exact dimensions. In a chapter entitled "Jim Bowie's Elusive Knife" from his entertaining book "Texas Tales Your Teacher Never Told You", Charlie noted the following:
"In the 1950's one of them-possibly the Smithwick/Juan Seguin Bowie- was in the possession of a collector named John R. Norris, who lived on Castle Hill Drive in Austin. In 1953, in a one-room house made of heavy logs in which Mr. Norris housed his collection...I was permitted to examine and measure the knife.
"The Smithwick Bowie in Mr. Norris' possession had a blade ten and one-half inches long, two inches wide and a quarter inch thick.The clip or "gut-tickler" was three inches long and perfectly straight, not dished. The point was at the center of the blade. It had neither fuller nor ricasso. Knife folks know that a fuller is the so-called "blood groove" in the blade, which has all sorts of fanciful explanations for existing. In fact, it helps stiffen the blade, in exactly the same manner that a T-shaped bar of iron is stiffer than a flat bar. The ricasso is that little piece between the hilt and the blade that isn't sharpened and usually has the knife-maker's trademark on it.
"It had a perfectly straight iron crossguard, a full tang and a grip made of two pieces of light colored wood-possibly bois d' arc (Osage Orange or "Hossapple")-which was fastened with two large rivets. The blade was marked near the guard with a large spread eagle and N.SMITHWICK in capital letters in a semicircle over the eagle. The dimensions of the Smithwick Bowie are identical to the dimensions Wellman gave for the knife in "The Iron Mistress", which leads me to believe that he probably saw and measured a Smithwick Bowie in the research for the book."
I've known Charlie over 35 years now and this version to the oral versions I've heard him state several times in that period. There are very few Smithwick marked knives in private collections now, and our chances of finding another are rare. If my scanner weren't on the 'fritz', I'd upload the illustration from the book. Your local library can probably get a copy for anyone to view. I just wish some enterprising knifemaker would copy the pattern exactly and put an end to all the speculation about what and how.
I agree. Most people probably think of this "style", even if it has no basis in fact. Any big knife is a "Bowie" to them.Jack Wilson said:
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Jack Wilson,
My point (such as it was) is (once more) "any large fighting knife" can TODAY be called a "Bowie", to the point that the term "Bowie knife" has become NEAR meaningless.
In 1968, I talked to the curator at HAM & he told me that he believed that NOBODY is sure what exactly the knives, made at Washington AR, looked like BUT that there were TWO identical knives made for the Bowie brothers. One was marked "RB" (with the "R" reversed) and the other marked "JB" (with the J & B connected.)
To further complicate matters, when I was the Deputy PM at Ft Sam Houston in 1982,I was told by "the historian of The Alamo" (I've forgotten his name over the last 30+ years.) that "the Daughters have been offered" a large knife marked with the "mark" (RB) described by the curator at HAM by the family of a Mexican soldier, who fought during the siege.
(If that's "an attempted scam" to make a buck, I wonder how a family in Mexico would know about "the 'RB' mark".)
The "Bowie knife controversy" to quote an old saying is: "A tangle, a puzzle and a mystery, wrapped in enigma and lost in the mists of uncertainty."
yours, satx
My point (such as it was) is (once more) "any large fighting knife" can TODAY be called a "Bowie", to the point that the term "Bowie knife" has become NEAR meaningless.
In 1968, I talked to the curator at HAM & he told me that he believed that NOBODY is sure what exactly the knives, made at Washington AR, looked like BUT that there were TWO identical knives made for the Bowie brothers. One was marked "RB" (with the "R" reversed) and the other marked "JB" (with the J & B connected.)
To further complicate matters, when I was the Deputy PM at Ft Sam Houston in 1982,I was told by "the historian of The Alamo" (I've forgotten his name over the last 30+ years.) that "the Daughters have been offered" a large knife marked with the "mark" (RB) described by the curator at HAM by the family of a Mexican soldier, who fought during the siege.
(If that's "an attempted scam" to make a buck, I wonder how a family in Mexico would know about "the 'RB' mark".)
The "Bowie knife controversy" to quote an old saying is: "A tangle, a puzzle and a mystery, wrapped in enigma and lost in the mists of uncertainty."
yours, satx
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Wes/Tex,
INTERESTING. - Do you perhaps have a copy of Smithwick's book, that I can borrow?
(I've had had little luck getting the staff of the SAPL to get me "rare books" through ILL.)
yours, satx
INTERESTING. - Do you perhaps have a copy of Smithwick's book, that I can borrow?
(I've had had little luck getting the staff of the SAPL to get me "rare books" through ILL.)
yours, satx
It doesn't help that Brother Rezin seemed to enjoy having large knives made and presenting them as gifts, favors, bribes as "Gen-u-wine Bowie Knives". He was a land speculator and politician - and claimed to have invented the design. The Searles Bowie is one of these and is the only "Bowie" knife, as I understand, that can actually be traced to having been handled/owned by a member of the Bowie family - Rezin, that is.
Looks nothing like what most folks identify with a Bowie pattern.
Looks nothing like what most folks identify with a Bowie pattern.
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Stumpkiller et. al.,
AGREED. BOTH Bowie brothers were "a piece of work" and "well-known to the Sheriff of Orleans Parish in Louisiana for their shady business dealings and some affairs said to be even less reputable. It is said 'on the Great Mississippi' that the brothers Bowie were deeply involved in lawless affairs involving the River Pirates that plague Plaquermines (sic) Parish".
(From the unpublished memoirs of Elizabeth Elaine Perkins-Brazile at Dillard University of New Orleans. Page 57ff.)
Also, my late mentor and GREAT Texas playwright, Ramsey Yelvington, (He called me his "young protege" & sometimes "my shadow, that goes in and out with me", when I was in boarding school from 1962-65.), speaking for Jim Bowie (Professor Yelvington could have been speaking for BOTH brothers!) in his play A CLOUD OF WITNESSES (University of Texas Press,1959,Page 48)
"------- Hand over hand I yanked myself up, station by station
I parlayed my various deeds into a legended reputation,
Until in The Delta Queen City I was almost accounted
reputable;
Until in New Orleans society I was almost - which is NOT -
acceptable!"
yours, satx
AGREED. BOTH Bowie brothers were "a piece of work" and "well-known to the Sheriff of Orleans Parish in Louisiana for their shady business dealings and some affairs said to be even less reputable. It is said 'on the Great Mississippi' that the brothers Bowie were deeply involved in lawless affairs involving the River Pirates that plague Plaquermines (sic) Parish".
(From the unpublished memoirs of Elizabeth Elaine Perkins-Brazile at Dillard University of New Orleans. Page 57ff.)
Also, my late mentor and GREAT Texas playwright, Ramsey Yelvington, (He called me his "young protege" & sometimes "my shadow, that goes in and out with me", when I was in boarding school from 1962-65.), speaking for Jim Bowie (Professor Yelvington could have been speaking for BOTH brothers!) in his play A CLOUD OF WITNESSES (University of Texas Press,1959,Page 48)
"------- Hand over hand I yanked myself up, station by station
I parlayed my various deeds into a legended reputation,
Until in The Delta Queen City I was almost accounted
reputable;
Until in New Orleans society I was almost - which is NOT -
acceptable!"
yours, satx
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To All,
There were, according to the mercantile records of Orleans Parish, LA, numerous persons who were making and/or selling "Bowie's Knives" from about 1830 onward, which had become "popular to carry" after "The Sandbar Fight" AND particularly after "The Duel at Midnight in the Ice-house".
SOME of those (counterfeit) "Bowie's Knives" looked almost like (heavily decorated) short swords. - I've seen one pair of so-called of "Bowie's Knife" in NOLA that have blades about fifteen inches long and 3 inches wide (about 22 inches overall), which are "cased with" & "made to match" a brace of (expensive) silver-mounted & heavily engraved, dueling pistols.
Addenda: WEARING a "Bowie's Knife" could be "hazardous to one's health", as wearing one in NOLA might get you "called out".
yours, satx
There were, according to the mercantile records of Orleans Parish, LA, numerous persons who were making and/or selling "Bowie's Knives" from about 1830 onward, which had become "popular to carry" after "The Sandbar Fight" AND particularly after "The Duel at Midnight in the Ice-house".
SOME of those (counterfeit) "Bowie's Knives" looked almost like (heavily decorated) short swords. - I've seen one pair of so-called of "Bowie's Knife" in NOLA that have blades about fifteen inches long and 3 inches wide (about 22 inches overall), which are "cased with" & "made to match" a brace of (expensive) silver-mounted & heavily engraved, dueling pistols.
Addenda: WEARING a "Bowie's Knife" could be "hazardous to one's health", as wearing one in NOLA might get you "called out".
yours, satx
