Paul Chen Bowie Knives

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FullerH

Joined
Nov 25, 1998
Messages
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CAS Iberia has taken out a full page ad on the back of the February, 2005, issue of "Blade" magazine. They are announcing a very large new line of premium Bowie Knives made by Paul Chen's works at Hanwei, Manchuria. The CAS Iberia website* has them listed at $199.00 each, but does not have pictures nor any information about them. Does anyone know anything more about these knives?

* Go to http://www.casiberia.com/cas_website/main.asp and then enter "bowie" into the search. You will then bring up the page.
 
Thanks for the link! I did the search for Bowies, clicked on one of the knives, then clicked on the PDF version of the catalogue & came up with pictures - pretty cool, check 'em out!

Not sure if its SS or HC steel though. Hopefully they are HC & differentially tempered like the tactical tanto!
 
James, it beats Hell out of me. How do you get into the PDF version? All that I can access is the regular online catalogue. :confused: :confused:
 
Go to the site & do the search for Bowies - you will come up with a list with their Outrider Bowie on top & thumbnails with no photos underneath. You can either click the stock numbers over to the left or the thumbnail itself; this will give you the description of the knife but still no pics. However, on the left hand side of the product display there are 2 choices: printer friendly version & 'view catalog PDF'. Click on the words 'view catalog PDF' & once it loads, you should have color pics...

Here's a couple links to the PDF catalog directly:

http://www.casiberia.com/cas_website/pdfs/011k.pdf

http://www.casiberia.com/cas_website/pdfs/009k.pdf

http://www.casiberia.com/cas_website/pdfs/012k.pdf

I particularly like the looks of the 'Bell Bowie'...
 
Thanks ever so much. I likes 'em big, so I tend towards the Bell Bowie, myself, along with the Vicksburg Bowie. I especially like the "dogbone" hilt on the Vicksburg Bowie.
 
Hmmm...

This ties in directly with the bowie thread I recently started. Notice how they all (except for 1 or 2) have blades about 8 or 9 inches long? I haven't searched yet, but am pretty sure the origionals these knives were patterned after were bigger.

Coincidence? Seems to me they intentionally shrunk them down to better fit the modern idea of the "bowie knife".
 
Fuller H-
By golly, I think you just proved my point once again. That replica is only 16 1/4" long. Wasn't the origional Musso Bowie around 20" long? An extra four inches of blade is a considerable difference. Yep, I'd have to say real Bowie knives were bigger than the average modern consumer seems to believe.
 
Hey, Made in Manchuria...
Isn't that like Made in China?

it's like saying...
Manufactured in Formosa...

New Amsterdam,
Constantinople,
Prussia...
 
MelancholyMutt said:
Hey, Made in Manchuria...
Isn't that like Made in China?

it's like saying...
Manufactured in Formosa...

New Amsterdam,
Constantinople,
Prussia...
Click to expand...

In a sense, but Manchuria is a part of China and not an alternate name that's fallen into disuse, so it's like saying "made in New York," or "made in Toledo." Also, there's the fact that Hanwei's mark on a blade is generally a sign of quality far surpassing that of anything else with an edge that says "made in China." So maybe he's trying to separate himself from the chaff, as it were. You see dozens of things like this - the "Seki-City" stamp on knives from Seki, Japan; the Arkansas etch on Dozier knives, etc.
 
OK you got my attention. Beautiful Bowies !
Does anyone know when they will be available and who discounts CIS Iberia
knives ?
Jocko
 
MM, It is like saying that Spydercos are made in Colorado. Now, we know that Colorado is a part of the USA and I had made an assumption that people would know that Manchuria is part of China. You would have been correct if I had called it "Manchukuo", the name that the Japanese used for the puppet state that they established there in the 1930s and that nobody else ever recognized.

Possum, I have no idea how big the originals upon which the Chen reproductions are based were, I am only interested in the two mentioned, the Vicksburg Bowie and the Bell Bowie with blades of 9.25" and 11.75", respectively. I'd prefer the Vicksburg Bowie with a longer blade, but ----.

As to the Musso Reproduction, you must remember that he is one of the foremost Bowie collectors and historians around and has a number of Bowies. Besides the one that Imperial is selling, you can see some others at the following sites:
http://www.thealamofilm.com/article_bowie.htm for the one supposedly picked up by a Mexican soldier at the Alamo after the siege, and:
http://www.theoutlaws.com/heroes4.htm at about halfway down the page. The pic shows two reproduction Bowies from Atlanta Cutlery and the bottom one is based upon the one from Musso's collection. I can vouch for its size, it is huge! But I can also say that it is not worth the price; the scabbard is of the sort that you would find on a cheap POS at a tourist trap and the blade is very, very thick without an adequate taper to the edge which is rounded off. The result is a heavy blunt instrument that requires the removal of huge amounts of steel to make a proper edge and, on mine at least, the steel has an Rc number that must be at least 65 or more, it is harder than Hell! I would also note that the Imperial reproduction comes with an 11.25" blade, hardly a small knife, considering that the blade on the Ontario Bagwell Hells Belle is 11" and that is the largest of the Bagwell Bowies that Ontario makes and it is quite large, of that I can also vouch. BTW, the article in the link showing the huge Bowie says that the knife has a 14" blade, while the Atlanta Cutlery Repro has a 13" blade.

I should think that, when you get to a 20" blade, you have a shortsword rather than a large knife. The Roman's Pompeii-style shortsword varied from ca. 18" to 22", the one Albion was selling was 20".
 
If you like big heavy bowies, don't forget about the HI AK Bowie. No guard, but heavy duty all the way.
 
FullerH said:
MM, It is like saying that Spydercos are made in Colorado. Now, we know that Colorado is a part of the USA and I had made an assumption that people would know that Manchuria is part of China. You would have been correct if I had called it "Manchukuo", the name that the Japanese used for the puppet state that they established there in the 1930s and that nobody else ever recognized.
Click to expand...

Fuller, you can't argue Chinese history with a Chinaman...LOL

Manchuria does not exist anymore as it is now called HeiLongJiang Province, so my original arguement is valid.
 
OK, I had always read it as being Hanwei, Manchuria. Perhaps the bits on which I read that assumed that dumb Americans like me wouldn't know what HeiLongJiang Province was. I still tend to thionk of it as Peking and the late Chairman as Mao-Tse-Tung, so what do I know? Of course, I also say "an historical novel" and "an hotel" so some of my English is as out of date as my Chinese apparently is. ;)

And, BTW, I had no idea that you were Chinese, MM.
 
Fuller, sorry for getting off the topic here. I didn't mean to come across so negative. Anyone who likes big blades, and any company that makes 'em are good things.

FullerH said:
I should think that, when you get to a 20" blade, you have a shortsword rather than a large knife.
And, well, that's kinda my point. I think the early Bowies really did have more in common with short swords than utility knives. Though above I was talking about 20" overall rather than 20" blade, I still consider my big Bowie a "knife" rather than sword, despite its 18 inch blade.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
There's a famous cartoon with the caption "The great thing about the Internet is no one can tell you're a dog."

Or in this case, no one can tell Melancholy Mutt is not a dog.... :cool:
 
Cougar Allen said:
Or in this case, no one can tell Melancholy Mutt is not a dog.... :cool:
Click to expand...

But I thought I was a dog...

AH, I called myself a Chinaman... my mistake... I'm a Chinese dog on the way to a warm plate in the sechzuan province...
 
At this point, I wish that I could post the famous Charles Addams cartoon about the food editor taking a puppy to a gourmet restaurant to have it prepared so that he could write about the Europeans reduced to eating dogs during WWII.
 
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