Primitive Bowie question

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DocGP

Joined
Feb 22, 2009
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Had the distinct pleasure of going to the Alamo last week and drooled on the glass at the knife displays. I am going to let my wallet heal a bit and order one of Matts repro Alamo Bowies;

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Picture borrowed from his website. My question is, what was the purpose of the brass along the spine of the knife? Just for looks? Most of the knives back then were fairly utilitarian, so I thought there must be a purpose for that.

Doc
 
Brass is too soft for flint striker.
I've red that brass strip, common in fighting bowies, is for parrying - protects the spine from impacts that can break the knife. Cool explanation ;)
 
DocGP said:
My question is, what was the purpose of the brass along the spine of the knife? Just for looks? Most of the knives back then were fairly utilitarian, so I thought there must be a purpose for that.
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The pictured knife is based on the "Musso Bowie" which is not even actually from "back then"- RL Wilson said he knew the man who made that knife in the 1950's. Bernard Levine postulates that the idea came from Lucy Bowie, when she was describing the gold escutcheon (which she mistook for brass) inlaid into the spine of the Searles Bowies. So, the brass back on bowies was created based on that mistaken description; not because of a functional reason. I gleaned this info from reading a bunch on the subject in Bernard's forum; let me know if you need some links.

Also, I would not make such a statement about knives "back then" being utilitarian- especially weapons. They knew how to make high quality and fancy items too.
 
the possum said:
The pictured knife is based on the "Musso Bowie" which is not even actually from "back then"- RL Wilson said he knew the man who made that knife in the 1950's. Bernard Levine postulates that the idea came from Lucy Bowie, when she was describing the gold escutcheon (which she mistook for brass) inlaid into the spine of the Searles Bowies. So, the brass back on bowies was created based on that mistaken description; not because of a functional reason. I gleaned this info from reading a bunch on the subject in Bernard's forum; let me know if you need some links.
Click to expand...

I am interested in those links....

But, to the original poster.... Some have suggested that the brass back was to catch the edge of a knife in a fight. Probably highly speculative, but it has been suggested.

Also, in terms of the original knife that Rezin gave James, that design is not very close. But, Musso bowies make for a hell of a conversation piece.

Marion
 
the brass is designed to catch an opponents blade so it doesn't slip of the spine when blocking, could be bad :eek:
but I dont know if thats actually true, chances are somebody added it because it looked cool the justifyed adding it with the above reasoning
 
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