British Commonwealth Pakistani Bowie Knife?

J

jamesparish

Joined
Jun 7, 2015
Messages
1
Hello All,

Brand new to forum. Have a knife which I was gently cleaning when rust removal revealed the word 'Pakistan'. Surprised because it is an old knife from an old Connecticut family that would never have ventured from the state let alone to Asia, I did some research:

Measures 14 1/2 inches tip of blade to end of handle

Blade 9 1/2 inches

Handle; chunky piece of wood, thick, three brass (?) rivets or nails that were cut off (?)

Crossguard appears brass, somewhat fancy in that it curves upward on one side, downward on the other

Reference photo comparison on Arms2Armor site appeared similar which is why I'm guessing British Commonwealth, American Bowie-style perhaps survival knife.

Age; not sure, certainly not new. Like most of the tools and objects I have from that family everything is 80+ years old. The wood is very aged and 'feels' late 1800s to early 1900s

My focus is genealogy and I'm wondering how it ended up on a farm in Collinsville, Ct where my family had lived between 1840 and 2000ish.

Did American military, perhaps Civil War armorers outsource manufacture of Bowie knives? Seems preposterous.
Were Pakistani produced products of any type common in America?
How can I identify its age in order to figure out how it got here?

Not sure if I can add pictures but will gladly.

Thanks for considering this…


James
 
Umm..no. Sorry man but Pakistani made blades are generally inexpensive, low quality flea market fodder. I'd be surprised if it was more than 50 years old.
I'm not positive, but I think it was the late 60's early 70's when they really exploded onto the market.
 
PiercedBill said:
Umm..no. Sorry man but Pakistani made blades are generally inexpensive, low quality flea market fodder. I'd be surprised if it was more than 50 years old.
I'm not positive, but I think it was the late 60's early 70's when they really exploded onto the market.
Click to expand...

This, except I might put the date of the explosion maybe 20 years later.


Did American military, perhaps Civil War armorers outsource manufacture of Bowie knives? Seems preposterous.
Click to expand...

That's because it is preposterous.
 
Did American military, perhaps Civil War armorers outsource manufacture of Bowie knives? Seems preposterous.
Click to expand...

That's because it is preposterous.
Click to expand...
Preposterous indeed.
Civil war bowie knives were privately purchased, many from Sheffield England. Pakistan would not have had the manufacturing and exporting capability to do that in direct competition to European cutlers. Pakistani cutlery production would have ended up somewhere more local to Pakistan than the USA.

Pakistan came into existence after WWII. I really doubt they would have used Pakistan in english to denote provenance before then.
 
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