R. McQueen Newcastle HUNTER BOWIE?

[Fixed Blade]

Here's a link for an interesting knife now on ebay. Advertised as American but I'm thinking Sheffield. Never heard of McQueen but Goins does have a listing. Thoughts?

FB in Vt.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Antique-...77421307513536

[spiraltwista]

Here's a link for an interesting knife now on ebay. Advertised as American but I'm thinking Sheffield. Never heard of McQueen but Goins does have a listing. Thoughts?

FB in Vt.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Antique-...77421307513536

Lots of links on the web , including this one from British Blades.
Spiral

"R.McQueen and son were in Grainger St., Newcastle. In the 1850 Ward's directory for Northumberland and Durham, Robert was at 45 Grainger St., and he was listed as a cutler and surgical instrument maker. From 1858 to 1916 (the last directory I could access) R McQueen and son were at 52 Grainger St. So the firm continued long after Robert's death. By the late 1890's, the firm also advertised as opticians and makers of surgical instruments, truss and bandages, suppliers to the Newcastle Royal Infirmary. They were also makers of mathematical instruments.
So it sounds as though they were makers of precision instruments, including knives.
Pam"

From. http://www.britishblades.com/forums/...p-Howson/page2

[sunnyd]

The actual eBay listing has some damn lousy pix of the knife so its kind of difficult to see any real detail to determine legitimacy.

[Motey]

That person has had running listings with very similar group pictures for all the knives he sells. I don't know anything about him personally, but it struck me as odd that he's had a nearly constant stream of antique knives for the last nine months. And yeah most of his pics are just blurry enough.

[bernard_levine]

Not American.

Not Sheffield.

Almost certainly not 19th century.

Might have been made in house, in Newcastle.

But it is so generic looking, I lean toward a private brand import from Germany or Bohemia.

Surgical instrument companies made money doing custom work.

They would have lost money if they made their own generic goods, such as this.

Not unheard of, though. Just unlikely.

* * *

The term is bowie-style hunting knife or bowie-hunter.
Dyslexing it into "hunter-bowie" gives the false impression that it is a bowie. It's not.

BRL...