Penny Knife for Patches?

[Black Hand]

We’re all just blowing smoke here, vitural campfire bs session

If that is your view, why do you bother? If none of this holds any significance to you beyond being a "virtual campfire BS" session, why care at all? I do care about the history and do care about what is factual and I do care what actually happened/existed...

 

[tenngun]

I care but I try and keep a perspective on what we do. We’re just history nerds having fun. I want to try and stay as true to my times and camp as I can. We can’t move back in time, at some point no matter how much you research or how much you struggle your always going to miss a 100% camp at some point.
The sheep that existed then have been bred out of existence, you can’t get eighteenth century wool... or apples or pork. Hunt a buffalo? Well the eastern and western species have been bred together in to one. Eastern elk seen here in mo are descendants from western herds.
Even if we could get put together the most perfect camp and outfit possible to reproduce today we can’t unlearn what we know.
We know no Indian will sneak in to our camp to murder us, we know we have to take care of water and treat cuts with something better then vinegar or tobacco juice.
I bother because it brings me joy to play this game. But we’re just having fun.
That’s all we can ask.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

If that is your view, why do you bother? If none of this holds any significance to you beyond being a "virtual campfire BS" session, why care at all? I do care about the history and do care about what is factual and I do care what actually happened/existed...

I agree, Blackhawk. Part of the hobby to me, and why I'm wanting to recreate the "old times" as much as I can.

So for an early to mid 19th century impression, does that change the likelihood of a penny knife in a shooting pouch?

 

[Black Hand]

I agree, Blackhawk. Part of the hobby to me, and why I'm wanting to recreate the "old times" as much as I can.

So for an early to mid 19th century impression, does that change the likelihood of a penny knife in a shooting pouch?

Let's change the question: Why are you determined to have what has become termed "penny knife" (Shown above - Turned handle with a metal collar and blade)? Unless there is evidence that shows this specific type/style of knife was present in the colonies/your area during your time of interest, I'd avoid it. Why not one of the folding knife options that were know to be present?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_knife

Now - you can chose to use one and very few people would know or care whether or not it was used in your specific period. To them it is an "Old-timey" knife and that is all that is necessary. If you want to stay period-correct, then more study is required. Stophel has given some good information that would allow you to start looking.

I have one and do occasionally carry it PRIMARILY because it was made and gifted to me by a friend. When on the trail, I use my belt knife (and belt axe) for cutting tasks. I can't remember when (or if) I've used a folder on the trail....

 

[Stumpkiller]

If a hunter/farmer/anyone who used a flintlock in the last half of the 18th century were to be transported to the present and read this amazingly augmentative "discussion" about whatever knife he used to cut patches, I suspect he would be totally bumfuzzled at all the fuss. Again, this forum has shown that it has got to be in contention for the top spot where that proverbial dead dog is repetitively beat to death. Sheesh!

Perhaps. But he may also say . . . "Wait a minute - you can buy meat at the grocery store and stay inside where it is dry and safe and yet you futz around with those miserable old flintlocks? Are you nuts?"

Yes. We are. ;-)

 

[tenngun]

I agree, Blackhawk. Part of the hobby to me, and why I'm wanting to recreate the "old times" as much as I can.

So for an early to mid 19th century impression, does that change the likelihood of a penny knife in a shooting pouch?

We know of historic examples of knifes that look like a penny knife of existing. You can alter the blade shape a little to get closer.
Was one found in everybody’s kit? No. However there is no reason that knife can not be used for a mid nineteenth century kit.
Someone wore the first rifelmans shirt and was the only one doing it at the time. Some one carried the first American made rifle and was the only one with it. People were individuals then and did individual things.

 

[Black Hand]

We know of historic examples of knifes that look like a penny knife of existing. You can alter the blade shape a little to get closer.
Was one found in everybody’s kit? No. However there is no reason that knife can not be used for a mid nineteenth century kit.
Someone wore the first rifelmans shirt and was the only one doing it at the time. Some one carried the first American made rifle and was the only one with it. People were individuals then and did individual things.

And none of this gets us any closer to the answer....

 

[tenngun]

So, a person is out of step using a rare item, in this case a knife, for the purpose of cutting?
An Englishman living in upstate New York colony during the F&I kills an Indian and dispoiles him of his goods. So you suddenly have an English man with a Frenchknife and fusil. Not common for Englishmen, but he wouldn’t have thrown away a valuable prize.
A pirate takes a Spanish shipthen sells the booty in Charles Town or Baltimore. You think Good English men turned up their noses at Spanish goods?
That such a knife existed in nineteenth century and no special improbable story is needed to get in in to an American rifleshooters hands means he could have used it to cut stuff... including patches.

 

[Black Hand]

So, a person is out of step using a rare item, in this case a knife, for the purpose of cutting?
An Englishman living in upstate New York colony during the F&I kills an Indian and dispoiles him of his goods. So you suddenly have an English man with a Frenchknife and fusil. Not common for Englishmen, but he wouldn’t have thrown away a valuable prize.
A pirate takes a Spanish shipthen sells the booty in Charles Town or Baltimore. You think Good English men turned up their noses at Spanish goods?
That such a knife existed in nineteenth century and no special improbable story is needed to get in in to an American rifleshooters hands means he could have used it to cut stuff... including patches.

Use anything you want because there is an off-chance that 2 African Sparrows could have carried a penny-knife from Germany between them by a creeper held under their dorsal guiding feathers and dropped it into the hand of a Frontiersman in Kentucky in the summer of 1742 or one of the men on the L&C expedition force in 1803...

 

[tenngun]

We can invent improbable stories, and your hyperbole is an example. I’m sure we’ve all heard such stories.
Yet one of these knifes was found under Clark’s House. So I can believe it’s an authentic early nineteenth century knife, or I could take the improbable story that some greedy supplier planted the knife so that it would be discovered put on display and then folks would buy his knife.
Traffic existed between the Germanies and America. Lots of Central European ‘Germans’ came to America. Unless they came nude it stands to reason some Central European stuff came with them.... I don’t think they came nude, but just maybe?
Or maybe on leaving the ship they had to strip and buy all English/American goods

 

[Black Hand]

We can invent improbable stories, and your hyperbole is an example. I’m sure we’ve all heard such stories.
Yet one of these knifes was found under Clark’s House. So I can believe it’s an authentic early nineteenth century knife, or I could take the improbable story that some greedy supplier planted the knife so that it would be discovered put on display and then folks would buy his knife.
Traffic existed between the Germanies and America. Lots of Central European ‘Germans’ came to America. Unless they came nude it stands to reason some Central European stuff came with them.... I don’t think they came nude, but just maybe?
Or maybe on leaving the ship they had to strip and buy all English/American goods

Please post your evidence. As always, speculation counts for nothing...and that is all I'm hearing.

 

[Bo T]

We can invent improbable stories, and your hyperbole is an example. I’m sure we’ve all heard such stories.
Yet one of these knifes was found under Clark’s House. So I can believe it’s an authentic early nineteenth century knife, or I could take the improbable story that some greedy supplier planted the knife so that it would be discovered put on display and then folks would buy his knife.
Traffic existed between the Germanies and America. Lots of Central European ‘Germans’ came to America. Unless they came nude it stands to reason some Central European stuff came with them.... I don’t think they came nude, but just maybe?
Or maybe on leaving the ship they had to strip and buy all English/American goods

To my eyes the clip blade of the knife that was shown from the museum is different from the exacto blade (for lack of a better term) knife that the OP originally posted.

 

[tenngun]

Please post your evidence. As always, speculation counts for nothing...and that is all I'm hearing.

 

[tenngun]

I have no reason to disbelieve it.
Yes I have seen things in museums that have been incorrect. However this is a national historic monument museum, I don’t know how a solid object becomes a speculation
Please note how similar the blade looks to so many of the archeology blades referenced above. Old rusted folding knife blades absence any sort of holder end.

 

[Black Hand]

I have no reason to disbelieve it.
Yes I have seen things in museums that have been incorrect. However this is a national historic monument museum, I don’t know how a solid object becomes a speculation
Please note how similar the blade looks to so many of the archeology blades referenced above. Old rusted folding knife blades absence any sort of holder end.

That's all you have? A knife with a vague statement about where it was found and that it was "typical". Not even a date when it was found? I'm sorry, but that hardly amounts to anything substantive.

 

[Straekat]

...........
Yet one of these knifes was found under Clark’s House. So I can believe it’s an authentic early nineteenth century knife, or I could take the improbable story that some greedy supplier planted the knife so that it would be discovered put on display and then folks would buy his knife.
Traffic existed between the Germanies and America. Lots of Central European ‘Germans’ came to America. Unless they came nude it stands to reason some Central European stuff came with them.... I don’t think they came nude, but just maybe?
Or maybe on leaving the ship they had to strip and buy all English/American goods

Two comments.

The pictured knife. Clark's house, or for that matter everywhere he lived, did not stop being occupied after he died in 1838. It may be possible to documents certain items belonged to Clark, but because it came from near on on what was his property, doesn't mean it was his, and the chances of someone else who lived or worked there may have lost or misplaced it. Museums, history books, doctors and "experts" get sh$t wrong all the time.


"maybe on leaving the ship they had to strip and buy all English/American goods." The British did something very very close to that. The Brits attempted to prevent all and any Catholics priests and practitioners from immigrating to North America. Before 1763, they feared Catholics would side with the French against English interests. Southern German states and the Austrian Empire were predominantly Catholic regions, and at various times during the 18th century, allied with France, against England and Prussia. Even after 1763 and well into the early years of the Republic, there was a strong anti-Catholic prejudice against Catholics. Some, even disliked and distrusted Germans. Benjamin Franklin, who was one of them, thought Germans would not be easily assimilated into, and always be a problem to the Anglo-Saxon nation he felt at home in.

So, where was that "Tracht" syle knife made? Yeah, in a German Catholic region, where the occupants would have had a tough time getting past the British anti-immigrant attitude against them.

 

[Black Hand]

I've visited the L&C Interpretive center in Great Falls, MT - hardly a place of rigorous scholarly/historical study and anything I saw there is taken with a truck-load of salt. I'm sorry that you can't seen what a poor example you have held up as "evidence"...

 

[Black Hand]

This reminds me of the trade in "holy" relics - random pieces of wood claimed to be from the cross, scraps of material and bones of dead "saints"...
All utterly unprovable and ridiculous to boot.

ANYTHING attributed to Lewis & Clark is immediately enshrined while being considered holy and inviolable. This isn't a measure of evidence or fact - it's gullibility.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

Black Hand, do you have any specific knife recommendations that I would be best served with? I’d prefer a folder but if not, a fixed blade would do.

 

[Black Hand]

Black Hand, do you have any specific knife recommendations that I would be best served with? I’d prefer a folder but if not, a fixed blade would do.

When are you?
In any case, a simple trade knife butcher or scalper (partial-tang, pinned wood handle) should serve you well. Inexpensive folding knives are hit-or-miss and not an area with which I am well-versed. Stophel or Straecat appear to have more knowledge with folding knives and could make recommendations.