Musso Bowie Knife

[RickD]

Excellent bowie..I wish I had your talent

 

[LRB]

You have it RickD, you just have to find it, and nurture it.

 

[jaxenro]

There was an excellent thread on this knife on blade forums:
[url] http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=390830&highlight=musso&page=2[/url]

if you can get past the tone of a few of BRL's comments there is lot's of good information on Bowie's

 

[LRB]

Thanks jaxenro, Very interesting read, and very interesting arguments from both sides in most cases when emotion did not over ride facts. One thing I saw that Levine wrongly pointed out, is when he referenced the picture of the Musso on the cover of "AMERICAN KNIVES". I have that book, and that is not the Musso Bowie. It is a facsimile of the Musso, but details are not the same, and it does not show the same amount of age. Not that it couldn't have been made by the same hand, but the details are not there. That said however, the fact that Bowie knives of the Musso style showed up before the Musso knife did, and that they are styled so close to it, is a disturbing fact that even I cannot ignore. I still hesitate to call the Musso Bowie a fake, but I can think of no reasonable answer for the others, which have been proven fake, to have pre-dated the appearance of the Musso. If the Musso is a fake, the maker was an artist, and a genius at his nefarious craft.

 

[anvil1231]

I don't know if the Musso is a fake or not. What needs to focused on here is the one you made. Outsanding craftsmanship in every respect. Beautiful work Wick.......Stuart

 

[colmoultrie]

Great, now I have another site to waste hours on! :cursing: :thumbsup:

Nice craftsmanship, Wick. Not my style of knife at all, but it's very well done! Probably worth more as a genuine Ellerbe than as a copy of anything.

 

[jaxenro]

I'll second that, the repro is just beautiful work

 

[davy]

So true .. no doubt! :hatsoff:

Davy

 

Again, I think your Musso knife is very well made and a very nice knife....but you asked me to check back in with more info from Old Washington, Ark. I had hoped to get to talk to Bill Hicks or Billy Nations [park rangers, knifesmiths there]this past weekend, but didn't link up with them this time. I did check out the geology around Washington, Ark to see if any bauxite or "pre-bauxite"[whatever that means--as a mineralogist and geologist it means little to me] exists in the area. Washington is located south of the exposed rocks of the Ouachita Mts [chiefly Paleozoic sedimentary rocks such as shales, sandstones and chert]. It is on and surrounded by upper Cretaceous sediments called the Nacatoch Sand--a unit about 300 ft thick composed of fine quartz sand, hard limestone, glauconitic sand, clayey black sands, clay and marl. These sediments were originally deposited in a nearshore marine [oceanic shoreline] setting and contain fossils of corals, various "seashells", crabs and shark teeth. About 2.5 miles to the north of the town is a belt of chalk (also upper Cret, fossiliferous marine sediments). Adjacent to that belt and north is a belt of marl (clayey lime). These marine chalk-marl formations together are about 300 ft thick. About 7 miles north of Washington there are exposures of the upper Cret. Ozan Formation, about 260 ft of sandy marl, also marine and has shark teeth in it. At the base, apparently not exposed close to town, are some phosphate nodules. This could conceivably be the source of the phosphate seen by Musso's tests, however there is no way to be sure, and the element could come from other sources. A couple of miles south of town are outcrops of the upper Cret. Arkadelphia Marl, also containing marine fossils. Stream valleys in the region contain gravels, sand, silt and clay. Soils reported from this area are described as rich dark loams to clays, no bauxite [soils are weathering products of the rocks with added organics, bauxite is an extreme weathering product of rocks rich in aluminum such as certain feldspars and clays]. The geology here needs to be researched in more detail to tie [or reject any tie]the reported chemistry from the knife to local materials. It is enough for me to understand that (1) the Musso knife is in NO way made like the known Black knives; (2)it is not possible to date metals and probably not possible to trace metals to the degree Musso claims; and (3) even if one could date the materials, that does not date the knife. As to the American Knives cover, I don't know who said it was the Musso knife, but my understanding is that is one nearly like it and just one of several like it that exist--these may be the British fakes mentioned by old time collector Ben Palmer. There are numerous documented 1830s Bowie knives. None look like the Musso knife. Alot of folks want to believe they own Jim Bowies knife. You need PROVENANCE and the Musso knife has none, among its other problems...none-the-less, Bowie knife lovers love such designs, and fantasy often rules in our minds...

 

[paulvallandigham]

I am surely glad that you gave us that geology lesson. From what I remembered of my Geology class taken about 40 years ago, most everything south of where the Ohio runs into the Mississippi River is a product of a Marine( shallow sea) environment, and of course, wind and water born sediments. Not exactly where any geologist would be looking for Aluminum, or Bauxite ore. I didn't know the total geology of the Ozark Mountain uplift, so you have filled in that gap, now, for me. Thanks.

I have always suspected the Musso Bowie as an old fake, simply because it is so unbalanced and clumsy, like a cleaver with an attitude! That brass piece on top never felt right, because it can't do the job Musso claimed it was to do- catch and turn or break oponent's blades. Brass is just too soft, and the wrap too thin.

I have to wonder if most people who claim to " Know " that his is the true Bowie knife design, have ever tried to sink a blade's edge into any piece of brass far enough that the brass catches and holds the blade strong enough to break it, or twist the blade out of your hand? I tried it with an axe, and couldn't get the blade into the brass far enough to do this. I can't imagine being able to do this with a knife, or sword blade.

And, as I have already mentioned, the blade is very clumsy to be moving in any kind of slashing motion, either to parry a blow or to deliver a serious wound to an opponent in a fight. I have no doubt that the weight is sufficient to do serious damage if that blade contact flesh and bone, but I can't see a knife fighter choosing this design for his life-saving knife in close quarter combat.

Finally, with the sharp sweep upward of that false edge, even a stabbing motion with this knife would be sure to be limited in depth of penetration by that false edge. The musso blade looks like a cleaver, with a pointed edge added to it, a fancy hilt, or guard, and that silly piece of brass added to the backstrap.

By comparison, the Moore Bowie at least has narrow cuts in the backstrap of the iron blade, and those cuts have the potention of catching the edges of some knives, so that the blade might be broken, or the opponent's knife wrenched from his hands. I am thinking of a thin bladed knife like a dagger or dirk in the hands of an opponent, or even a thin bladed carving knife. I am not convinced, however, that the Moore Bowie is the real deal, either. It is probably an early copy, as so many copies were made and sold world wide, after the fall of the Alamo, in 1836.

 

[Charles D. Prokopp]

As a bladesmith, I love to make various types of Bowies, even built one of these!
I find it entertaining, the level of passion that the Musso generates. Personally, I think it's an old fake.

 

Bauxite does occur in large masses near Benton, Arkansas [outside of little Rock]close to 100 miles away from washington. Those deposits were extensively mined as one of the major US sources of primary aluminum [most is now recycled stuff]in the 20th century. In Bowie's day aluminum was rare and hard to extract--it was treated like a precious metal. The bedrock around Little Rock is composed of complexly deformed Paleozoic strata much different than the sediments around Washington. They are part of the Ouachita Mts --which are in turn part of a late Paleozoic mountain chain that extended from New England (Appalachians) to Mexico (Marathons, etc)along the east coast and gulf coast. Bauxite needs high-alumina source materials to form such as the alumina underclays and greywackes of the coal measures or feldspathic rocks like granites. It is thought that tropical weathering is necessary, too. The sedimentary bedrock around Washington is not conducive to bauxite formation. In the 1830s there was no reason to mine bauxite and transport it, either.

 

P.S., the bauxite around Little Rock and Benton Ark formed by the weathering of the igneous rock [nepheline syenite--a quartz-poor granite-like rock]that intrudes the Paleozoics there--I left that part out above...it was first mined in the late 1890s and was important source of Al for WWII.

 

[davy]

I have no expertise here in this .... but although it may have been mined extensively later in the time period you stated Mike ... I am curious ... is there any reason to assume that no small amount of mineing, of such materials by an enterprizing smith could not have taken place on an individual basis before that time? Or must we assume no mining ever happened in these places before a major operation did so?

Davy

 

Bauxite was essentially useless in Bowie's day. Al had only been isolated as an elemental metal a few years before 1830, and the amounts extracted were tiny. Al had no use then and was valued as a precious metal [because it was rare--not rare in the sense of presence in rocks, but rare as extracted metal]. It was not until the late 1800s that a commercial process was invented to extract Al economically. The Arkansas bauxite deposits were not discovered until the late 1800s, just in time for the new process to trigger some mining. It was small scale [lack of demand] until the 20th century. There was no mining of the Ark deposits in the days of Black and Bowie. Period.

 

[davy]

I am out of my element here, & I am not trying to be argumentative either ... but ...unfortunately I have to say that I find it difficult to say with 100 percent certainty that NO mining, or for that matter any other thing is true of a given area.

I have no doubt you are corrct in terms of any great significant amount of it happening. But ... human nature is one of exploration and "necessity" is a commodity that is as we all know it the mother of invention.

Even the total absence of evidence of a given activity in an area does not IMHO make it something that "absolutely" did not take place at all .. it only means to my mind that until this particular time we have simply seen no amt of it that has been found to take place, not that it did not happen at all.

All due respect !

Davy

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

As I understood it, and Mike will correct me if I am wrong, the bauxite would be a residue (for lack of a better word) left on/in the guard from the sand used as the mould for casting the guard? In other words it just happened to be there, mining the bauxite for it's own sake has nothing to do with it as I read what was said. This has been a fascinating discussion.

 

[davy]

Well see thats where my real ignorance comes in ... it is a subject I know very little about as well. So are you saying the bauxite would be present in the sand as a by product from other mining practices? Is that it? It does not come about from any other procdess, or ... occur naturally? I simply do not know! :hmm:

Davy

 

[faw3]

I got to go with paulvallandigham on this one in a big way. Ive been in a knife fight or two aqnd wouldnt want that thing, now the first one that he was to have used is more like it, I like a knife I dont have to worry about the weight carrying me past what I was trying to cut or poke. I am :youcrazy: on the brass on top, you get two of those kind together and see if it dont cut right thru the brass I have and it do. DAVY if you understand any of whats been put up here and how it has something to do with what Bowie knife is what Your WAY ahead of me guy.
:surrender: Fred :hatsoff:

 

[davy]

As far as fightability is concerned FW, it seems that weight has a lot to do with heft of a combat style knife ... lighter means more manuverabilty. This knife is thinner than you would expect thus much lighter .. so more manuverable. Thats one part of the equation anyway. :hmm:

That being said ... whatever deposits (bauxite etc) on the knife brass there, are were would point I think to a given area if those deposits were seen there as well in the elements there in the area in question .. at least as an indicator. At least thta seems plausible to me.

Davy