Is it a Bowie W/O a crossguard?

I guess the short of it is- we'll never really know. The truth has been lost or clouded through out the years. I'd like to think the original bowie was a guardless blade, much like Bark Rivers rendition. However, when I think Bowie knife, I instantly think fighting knife. I've heard (from war vets) a guarded knife always makes a better fighter. I can't lie, I do like the fact that the idea of what a Bowie knife is differs from craftsman to craftsman. I enjoy seeing a Bowie knife thread in the Knifemakers portion of the exchange and not knowing what their interpretation of it will be.

From a historical POV, it would be nice to know what the original looked like and how it was used. But seeing the never-ending ideas and beliefs executed and brought to the table is awesome.

Thanks for the input guys. All of it is very much appreciated.:thumbup:

Duder.
 
Freman Bloodglaive said:
"It must be long enough to use as a sword, sharp enough to use as a razor, wide enough to use as a paddle, and heavy enough to use as a hatchet."

As long as it meets those criteria I guess it can be classed as a Bowie.

To be honest the 12 inch length is probably too big for me. 8 inches is probably a good figure, perhaps 6 inches. Who makes a good quality 8 inch clip pointed, quillianed, knife?
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That was written by a reporter 'back east.'
And we know how reporters are...

10" for a bowie.
Anything smaller is a hunter :D
 
Joe, get the Flayderman book.
Well worth the money for a bowie fan.
 
Ebbtide said:
Joe, get the Flayderman book.
Well worth the money for a bowie fan.
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And an earlier edition Levine's Guide. Even if you aren't a Bowie fan you should have one, but it also contains the most sensible/credible Bowie knife history I have read.
 
Ebbtide said:
That was written by a reporter 'back east.'
And we know how reporters are...

10" for a bowie.
Anything smaller is a hunter :D
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:D :thumbup:

10-12" are favorite's for many collectors, but the 8" is more comfortable to carry and use.
The larger ones chop better, but are more bulky.

hjwm.jpg


The 10" Tor is the finest knife I own, but I don't take it camping, as the 8" knives always has managed to do the job.


Regards
Mikael
 
I read, but sadly cannot cite, a good explanation of a Bowie knife as seen strictly in the context of antique knife collecting. For serious antique collectors if it didn't meet the criteria, you couldn't ethically call it, nor would anyone in the know pay the premium for the knife. The criteria (and I am working from memory here) were a knife from a very specific time period (pretty much the 1830s), a knife of a very specific range of sizes (big, not unlike the BK9 frankly), used in the USA (so a great big knife used in UK or Africa simply wouldn't be a Bowie). Finally the knife was designed and intended for use as a sidearm rather than as a hunting tool. The given is that the Bowie knife is to predate the invention of the cap and ball revolver and after on fired one's rifle, and either one or both of one's pistols (assuming one had any pistols) you would have to go to the knife to fight or defend yourself. With the advent of the cap and ball revolver, you had six shots after you'd fired your rifle. Whether or not that was enough in immaterial tot he collector. After the advent of the revolver, big knives of this sort are not classified as Bowie knives for categorization and pricing etc.

Modern makers, Nick Wheeler for example, make knives that would have been well within the parameters had they been made in 1830-something. Most of those sorts of makers avoid the nomencalture issue by calling them "fighters", "camp knives"...but the term Bowie has been alive and well for almost 200 years and I'd frankly expect it to be alive 200 years hence.
 
Ebbtide said:
Without the "top edge" it'd be a butcher knife :D
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Which is what the Sandbar knife was. French chefs knife, butchers knife, punal, Mediterranean dagger, Sandbar knife. All pretty much the same thing.

Funny thing, for people who want to know what the Sandbar knife looked like...they probably got one in their kitchen. :)

Which, of course, is not at all tacti-sexy now, nor was it back in the 1830s on. People wanted to buy the totally awesome blade Bowie used...even if it wan't the blade Bowie used. They felt happier buying the myth.

No different than today (think of the knives marketed as "used by special ops"). I think that's the coolest part of the whole story.
 
HoosierQ said:
The criteria (and I am working from memory here) were a knife from a very specific time period (pretty much the 1830s), a knife of a very specific range of sizes (big, not unlike the BK9 frankly), used in the USA (so a great big knife used in UK or Africa simply wouldn't be a Bowie). Finally the knife was designed and intended for use as a sidearm rather than as a hunting tool.
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So something like the BK7?
 
Charlie_K said:
100_5290_zpsa8a16131.jpg


Any discussion of what is and isn't a bowie knife, without including at least one entry of the BK9, is sacrilege.
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I don't know much about bowies, but that's not a Bowie, that's a pry bar with an edge. I'll have to pick me up one of those.
 
marcinek said:
Since the Forrest knife,


edwin_forrest.jpg


what many, including myself, believe is the sandbar knife and the original Bowie, then I say yes.

But, many, for some odd reason, believe a Bowie must look like the knife used in the entirely-unrelated-to-history 1952 movie The Iron Mistress.
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I think I may need a custom one of these..
 
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