Gaucho knives and cuchillos criollos of South America

[Trubetzkoy]

Today's theme: MOP-handled antiques.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Knife 1 I've already shown a few times here, before and after its restoration.

Knives 2-3 are very similar examples -- so similar in fact that it would appear that they were made in the same shop (example 2 is almost identical to mine, while in the case of example 3 the most striking resemblance is in the scabbard). Since example 2 bears the name of Broqua & Scholberg, a retailer that imported knives from Belgium, I'm led to think that my knife might've been made in the latter country, although the person who sold it to me said it was brought to the US from Germany as a war souvenir.

Finally, knife 4 is a victorian example made by Walters & Co of Sheffield. The auction site from which I took the picture actually described this piece as a bowie knife, although the blade profile makes me think that it was purposefully made in the South American style, even if it wound up elsewhere.

 

[CelloDan]

Making my mouth water too, Dan. Great pics, amigo!

Gracias Vince !

As always thanks for the pictures CelloDan ! I enjoy you sharing your adventures.

Thank you Christian
Posting from my phone now inside our little sailboat anchored for the night in a little cove

Welcome back!

Gracias amigo!

Today's theme: MOP-handled antiques.

Nice theme and photos !
Always enjoy your valuable contributions and your knowledge of knives !

I’ve been riding the water pampas for days at a time with my trusty Verijero always close to me

Last weekend freshly caught bass, bluegill and perch on the grill was such a success that I decided to bring different types of fish from the store to do it again and skip the fishing part

Tilapia, cod and trout

LETS LIGHT IT UP ! SHALL WE ?

What can I say
I was rather disappointed
The taste was ok however not even close to the experience of last week

Tilapia’s texture and flavour was off putting, cod was strong and “fishy “ and trout was ok I guess

When I finished eating I picked up my rod and decided to go and do things the right way … the gaucho way

Tomorrow we shall eat proper fish

At anchor tonight

 

[RayseM]

Not a fish in sight



Nothing like a long stout and sharp blade for slaying - er - slicing a pizza.

 

[CelloDan]

Not a fish in sight

View attachment 2299492

Nothing like a long stout and sharp blade for slaying - er - slicing a pizza.

I know a gaucho who would jump right into a knife fight for a pizza right now (using his Verijero of course )

We have fish coming out of our gills

I don’t even know how we’ll manage to finish what we still gave in the cooler …. Diana hid my fishing rods

 

[Trubetzkoy]

Not a fish in sight

View attachment 2299492

Nothing like a long stout and sharp blade for slaying - er - slicing a pizza.

That pizza looks friggin' amazing, and so does the knife of course. I love stag handles on gaucho knives. Too bad it's so hard to find antiques with that handle material. I might make that the theme of my next post .

 

[Trubetzkoy]

We have fish coming out of our gills

Gotta be careful with those mercury levels, mate!

 

[RayseM]

It was/is a most delicious pizza T Trubetzkoy - one of the few meals I can properly cook.

AND - SADLY you are right to caution about mercury levels in fish, especially the top predator fish in the ocean - tuna & swordfish, for example.
Now the big concern for FRESH WATER are PFAS chemicals. I fear Brother Dan is overdoing it too. I hate being an alarmist - we are all exposed and harboring an overload of toxins as we are living in this industrialized world.

Here is a link from the State of Maine - their safe fish eating recommendations and another from the Environmental Working Group emphasizing PFAS consumption dangers. Read em and weep.

SORRY for the long side bar. Back to wonderful GAUCHO knives - with stag handles.

 

[CelloDan]

Gotta be careful with those mercury levels, mate!

It was/is a most delicious pizza T Trubetzkoy - one of the few meals I can properly cook.

AND - SADLY you are right to caution about mercury levels in fish, especially the top predator fish in the ocean - tuna & swordfish, for example.
Now the big concern for FRESH WATER are PFA chemicals. I fear Brother Dan is overdoing it too. I hate being an alarmist - we are all exposed and harboring an overload of toxins as we are living in this industrialized world.

Here is a link from the State of Maine - their safe fish eating recommendations and another from the Environmental Working Group emphasizing PFAS consumption dangers. Read em and weep.

SORRY for the long side bar. Back to wonderful GAUCHO knives - with stag handles.

View attachment 2299674

Gracias mis amigos for the caring advice , I appreciate it !

It prompted me to check the government of Ontario website for the consumption guidelines in our area.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/fish-consumption-report?id=44467613

The recommendations for the type of fish and size that we are consuming call for about a max of 16 meal a month.
A meal consisting of 8oz or roughly half a pound or 227 grams.
A lot of the bass I catch is on smaller size for which they allow up to 32 meals a month.

I was relieved to see that we are well within safe margins even for the reduced consumption fir at risk population.

Gracias

 

[RayseM]

Canadian environment is fortunately safer than many others Eat your fish and be merry Dan.

 

[Prester John]

Not a fish in sight

View attachment 2299492

Nothing like a long stout and sharp blade for slaying - er - slicing a pizza.

A real gaucho would put anchovies on his pizza, Ray.

 

[RayseM]

This is Maine Vince - we do ours up with lobsters or grilled clams.

 

[Prester John]

This is Maine Vince - we do ours up with lobsters or grilled clams.

I could go for that! Making my mouth water, and I just finished a homemade pastitsio dinner (which was delicious--fresh Greek salad to start, and chocolate cake to end with)!

 

[Trubetzkoy]

Here's another picture of the knife I shared in post #536 after some work:

After thoroughly but carefully cleaning the scabbard and handle (a process that probably deserves an entire post; let me know if anybody's interested), I decided to work a bit on the blade, which not only had a recurve from sloppy sharpening, but also showed signs of having been heavily rusted and having been brought to the buffer (rather brutely) to take care of it. Specifically, I reestablished the tip (which I suspect had been affected by the buffing), got rid of the recurve, and brought the blade to a matte finish.

As I mentioned in post #536, I think this knife was made for the Brazilian market. However, where and when it was made is not so clear. Since I bought it from France, Occam's razor would suggest that the knife was made there. This is in fact supported by a listing I found recently of the knife pictured below, which was described as a French example from the 19th century:

Note the nearly identical scabbard belt hooks:

This, it doesn't seem far-fetched to hypothesize that my knife was made in France, probably around the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if I found out both knives were made in Germany or somewhere else in Europe.

 

[Prester John]

After thoroughly but carefully cleaning the scabbard and handle (a process that probably deserves an entire post; let me know if anybody's interested), I decided to work a bit on the blade, which not only had a recurve from sloppy sharpening, but also showed signs of having been heavily rusted and having been brought to the buffer rather to take care of it.

I would love to see that post.

 

[CelloDan]

After thoroughly but carefully cleaning the scabbard and handle (a process that probably deserves an entire post; let me know if anybody's interested)

I’d love to see it ! I know it will be very interesting, no doubt and also a point of reference for others attempting similar work in the future.

 

[Trubetzkoy]

Sorry for being monothematic, guys, but I wanted to share with you some new findings I've come across while researching the knife from posts #536 and #553, to see if anyone has any information that could help me identify this piece with more certainty.

After quite a bit of googling, I found several early examples with strikingly similar features -- most (but not all) of them by the Brazilian Scholberg branch. Here's a sample:

The most salient similarities are in the scabbard -- specifically, in the shape and chiseling of the belt clip or hook and the two rows of leaves forming an arrow-tip shape underneath. The only example that has a rather different clip design is the last one. However, the clip design is not all that different, as it also features a quasitriangular section at the tip (in this case shaped like a shield instead of a heart) clearly separated from the rest, and in fact I'd say the overall chiseling style (especially of the flowers and leaves) of this example is the most similar to that of my knife.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Scholberg is known to have imported from Belgium, though I've also read that some items came from France and Germany. In any case, what I wonder is whether they imported blades, assembled knives, or both, which raises the question of whether the silverwork was done in Europe or in Brazil. Since my knife was in France, and I found a hunting knife with pretty much the same scabbard clip (shown in post #553) which was described as being of French provenance, I had assumed the entire thing was made in Europe. But it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone might've brought the knife from Brazil at some point.

Furthermore, as I mentioned at the beginning, not all the examples I found can be attributed to Scholberg. Leaving aside an example I found which had no markings whatsoever (like mine, although mine has signs of having been heavily cleaned up, so the marking could've disappeared), I also found the following caronero, which has the same scabbard clip and arrow-shaped leaves but is marked with the name of a Solingen maker:

This would be consistent with the silverwork having been done in South America rather than Europe.

Any thoughts?

 

[CelloDan]

I wanted to share with you some new findings

Thanks for sharing
This thread needs more of T Trubetzkoy
How I wish I could help out !

Perhaps Mr Domenech’s book “Del Facon al Bowie” may have insights into this however it’s out of print and very expensive on auction sites.

Mr Domenech has a website in Spanish about knives and firearms.

On the contact tab he lists two email addresses for inquiries ( one for firearms and the other for knives)

I don’t know if his site it’s still maintained. It’s perhaps a long shot but one never knows.

https://www.domenech.com.ar/cuchillos.htm

 

[Prester John]

Sorry for being monothematic, guys, but I wanted to share with you some new findings I've come across while researching the knife from posts #536 and #553, to see if anyone has any information that could help me identify this piece with more certainty.

After quite a bit of googling, I found several early examples with strikingly similar features -- most (but not all) of them by the Brazilian Scholberg branch. Here's a sample:

The most salient similarities are in the scabbard -- specifically, in the shape and chiseling of the belt clip or hook and the two rows of leaves forming an arrow-tip shape underneath. The only example that has a rather different clip design is the last one. However, the clip design is not all that different, as it also features a quasitriangular section at the tip (in this case shaped like a shield instead of a heart) clearly separated from the rest, and in fact I'd say the overall chiseling style (especially of the flowers and leaves) of this example is the most similar to that of my knife.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Scholberg is known to have imported from Belgium, though I've also read that some items came from France and Germany. In any case, what I wonder is whether they imported blades, assembled knives, or both, which raises the question of whether the silverwork was done in Europe or in Brazil. Since my knife was in France, and I found a hunting knife with pretty much the same scabbard clip (shown in post #553) which was described as being of French provenance, I had assumed the entire thing was made in Europe. But it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone might've brought the knife from Brazil at some point.

Furthermore, as I mentioned at the beginning, not all the examples I found can be attributed to Scholberg. Leaving aside an example I found which had no markings whatsoever (like mine, although mine has signs of having been heavily cleaned up, so the marking could've disappeared), I also found the following caronero, which has the same scabbard clip and arrow-shaped leaves but is marked with the name of a Solingen maker:

This would be consistent with the silverwork having been done in South America rather than Europe.

Any thoughts?

Thank you for these stunning examples. I wish I could help, but I am just learning. I do appreciate your posts, and hope you will keep posting.

 

[Trubetzkoy]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

Perhaps Mr Domenech’s book “Del Facon al Bowie” may have insights into this however it’s out of print and very expensive on auction sites.

Mr Domenech has a website in Spanish about knives and firearms. On the contact tab he lists two email addresses for inquiries ( one for firearms and the other for knives)

I've been trying to get a hold on some of Domenech's books, but I've encountered exactly the issue you mentioned: crazy prices. There's also a book by Laércio Gazinhato titled Facas brasileiras antigas which I've been trying to find, but the situation seems to be similar. It's interesting how books on antique knives seem to be as expensive as the knives shown in them .

Thanks for sharing the info about Domenech's website -- I didn't know he accepted inquiries! Recently I reached out to Bernard Levine about this bowie hunter (I shared his comments in post #27), so may as well do something similar now with Domenech. In for a penny ...

 

[cbach8tw]

Thanks for keeping this thread really going. Appreciated.