Sherlock's Jackknife

Thomason

Thomason

Joined
Nov 28, 2002
Messages
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"The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jackknife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs."
----- Dr. Watson writing about his friend Sherlock Homes in "The Musgrave Ritual"

I realize that Homes and Watson were fictional characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but if he were a real person what do you bet that smiling-knife would have that very jackknife in his collection?:D
 
Here's a link to a photo that I found on the web. That doesn't look like a Sheffield-made knife to me and I can't imagine him using anything other than a Sheffield folder.

http://www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk/galleries/sittingroom/pages/Mantelpiece, 24 October 2006_jpg.htm

In my imagination, it's not really a jackknife per se but a classy jumbo (3 7/8 in)sleeveboard ivory-handled knife like this one. Maybe not, but It gives me opportunity to show this one.

26-05124.jpg

26-05126.jpg


He certainly would have used this Victorian smoker's knife to prepare his pipe while contemplating the days clues.

Smoker4.jpg
 
Sword and Shield said:
Looks almost like an Okapi in that picture- maybe the time during the Boer Wars. :)
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Looks like a Spanish Navaja to me.
Not unreasonable, IMO, to suspect that a well-educated, well-traveled, sophisticated individual like Holmes would have chosen a nice piece of cutlery from a foreign country (such as Spain), that he may have acquired during his travels.
The imagination is neat, huh? ;)
 
I don't know if Holmes would have used a navaja, but Watson was a vertern of the Afgan wars, and was wounded in combat. He could have brough back something with a mideast flair to it.

But I can't imagine them going about their adventures with anything but a Sheffield pocket knife. Maybe even something with stag.

In the film adaptation of "The Hound Of The Baskervilles" there is one scene that Holmes (Basil Rathbone) gets locked down a celler, and he takes out what looks like a pretty regular pocket knife and starts to whittle away the wood around the lock. He made it out in time to shoot the hound with his Webley

Ah, the days when gentlemen carried walking sticks, pocket knives had stag handles, and personal protection firearms were squat big bore revolvers!:thumbup:
 
Thomason said:
"The rough-and-tumble work in Afghanistan, coming on the top of a natural Bohemianism of disposition, has made me rather more lax than befits a medical man. But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jackknife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs."
----- Dr. Watson writing about his friend Sherlock Homes in "The Musgrave Ritual"

I realize that Homes and Watson were fictional characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but if he were a real person what do you bet that smiling-knife would have that very jackknife in his collection?:D
Click to expand...

A. Conan Doyle tended to be a stickler for details.

For example, in one story ( I forget which one, unfortunately.) Holmes tells Watson to activate the safety catch on his revolver. This is the same revolver, as I recall, that Watson calls a "Bullpup". As one might expect, "gun guys" have tended to be scornful of old ACD's knowledge about guns. However, ACD mosty likely knew what he was talking about. There was a Webley "Bulldog Pug", that was initially offered in .46 rimfire caliber, that did come with a safety catch. It would have been an ideal carry gun for a doctor who was stationed in Afghanistan during the period in question.

That being said, it seems likely that, when ACD refers to a "jackknife", that is what he would mean, i.e. a small to medium-sized folding knife that featured both a large spear blade and a smaller pen blade on one end of the knife. As I picture the knife, it would likely have been a bit on the large side with an extra-thick spear blade that featured more or less of a saber grind. I would imagine that the knife would have been made in Sheffield and I understand that a fair number of later Nineteenth Century Sheffield knives featured such comparatively thick master blades.

As far as what the knife's handle material might have been I can visualize a number of possibilities. Certainly stag would have been a candidate for consideration. So would ivory. I would imagine that old Sherlock might have considered mother of pearl to be a bit too "showy" and fragile and he most likely would have considered celluloid to be "infradig". If I had to choose what I think Sherlock Holmes might have chosen for the handle material for his knife I think it most likely would have been ebony. At the time ebony was relatively inexpensive, its dark color made the knife more or less unobtrusive, and it is a tough and durable wood that can withstand a fair amount of neglect and abuse. I also imagine that the knife would have been a "bare head", with a bolster on just the blade end of the handle, but the knife could just as easily have had bolsters on both ends of the handle.
 
Growing up in England, a jack knife was a single bladed folder with a clip or sheepsfoot blade of some kind.
The old army knife was a single blade sheepsfoot, and that was a jack knife.
A large barlow was a jack knife.
'Regular' pen knives had spear blades.
Just from memory!
 
Neeman,

I don't wish to contradict someone "who has been there". However, based on Sheffield knives that made it over to this side of "the pond" and various forms of "period" literature, it seems as if there were more than just one-bladed jacks for sale and use in "the Mother country". Too, I get the impression that spear point blades were more popular "back in the day" than they currently are.

On the other hand it may well be that one-bladed jacks were more popular in Great Britain than they were, here. That might still be the case if the offerings at Little Mesters are representative of current British preferences. The same might also be the case with the British's more extensive use of sheepsfoot and lambsfoot blades, a preference that may have something to do with Great Britain's maritime tradition.

In any event, it is great fun to speculate about what kind of pocket knife Sherlock Holmes might have carried and used. I, for one, can't imagine that Sherlock would voluntarily carry a knife that he could not use to ream out his pipe and still have a blade available for general cutting. However, whether the great detective used a knife that had one blade or more than that, I also speculate that he would also have the knife be an "easy opener" if one could be obtained.
 
jackknife said:
Ah, the days when gentlemen carried walking sticks, pocket knives had stag handles, and personal protection firearms were squat big bore revolvers!:thumbup:
Click to expand...

For some of us, those days are still here.

(All right, these days it's usually a 9mm. But sometimes I carry a .357.
I do not know if I qualify as a gentleman. I think that I am ahead of the game if I qualify as folksy.:D.)
 
I loe this thread even though it is pure speculation about a fictional character.
Mr Scedel's assertion for ebony has the same kind of logic that Sherlock himself used.
Stag and ivory are very nice and quite possible but ebony seems to be a bit more practical which would be a concern. I also like the one blade for the pipe and one for other practical uses even if the usual "jack knives" are one bladed.
 
Unsub said:
I loe this thread even though it is pure speculation about a fictional character.
Mr Scedel's assertion for ebony has the same kind of logic that Sherlock himself used.
Stag and ivory are very nice and quite possible but ebony seems to be a bit more practical which would be a concern. I also like the one blade for the pipe and one for other practical uses even if the usual "jack knives" are one bladed.
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You honor me sir! Thanks!:thumbup:
 
Exellent read jacknife! Thank you very much.:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Now I wish I had a short barrel .450 Webley! It would go well with my Blackthorn stick when I give the corgi her last walk of the night.
 
Glad you enjoyed it Jackknife.:thumbup:

I had a Webley MkV .455 service revolver at one time. Shot it at Bisley in the 80's. Used cut down .45 long Colt cases with the rims thinned down in a lathe.
Worked very nicely but the bird's head grip used to ride up in the hand under recoil so I got a MkVI. One of the best combat revolvers ever made IMO.

Those were the days.

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/Revolvers/Webley_MKV.htm
 
John Schedel said:
It certainly is! I still wish that I could find the reference to Watson's revolver that had a safety catch as a "Bull pup"!
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A STUDY IN SCARLET
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Spoken by Watson.
I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a bull pup," I said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."
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The Sherlockian researcher Jack Tracy believes that Watson was possibly refering to a phrase 'I keep a Bull-Pup' used in Victorian times, of Anglo-Indian origin, meaning to have "quick fits of temper "
 
jacknife said:
A STUDY IN SCARLET
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Spoken by Watson.
I laughed at this cross-examination. "I keep a bull pup," I said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."
----------------------------------
The Sherlockian researcher Jack Tracy believes that Watson was possibly refering to a phrase 'I keep a Bull-Pup' used in Victorian times, of Anglo-Indian origin, meaning to have "quick fits of temper "
Click to expand...

Jacknife,

You are correct in your reference to "A Study in Scarlet". However, I believe that at least one student of 19th Century small arms might offer an alternative to Jack Tracy's linguistic analysis. (In other words, I found my reference! OCD can be a wonderful thing, at times.)

The source that I recalled (imperfectly!) was an article by Dan Shideler in the April 22, 2005 issue of "Gun List" (now, "Gun Digest Magazine") entitled "The Case of the Nameless Pistol".

Shideler goes into a good bit more detail than I can go into, here. The "nub" of the matter for the purposes of this thread (which admittedly has diverged slightly from considerations of Sherlock Holmes' knives) is that Webley made a small number (about 3000) of revolvers called "The Pug" (a.k.a. The Model One) between 1873 and 1914.

These revolvers were originally chambered for a .41 Rimfire Long cartridge that produced ballistics that were more or less in the .38 Smith and Wesson cartridge's class. It was the use of a rimfire cartridge that necessitated the use of an external hammer block safety. The safety was to be employed to keep the hammer's nose off the rim of a chambered cartridge.

Late vintage Pug's were chambered in the .442 Webley center fire cartridge, a cartridge that approximated the ballistics of the .44 Russian round. I do not know whether the newer examples of this model retained the safety catch but the device would still have been a good idea given that, as I understand the situation, contemporary Webley revolvers were not equipped with rebounding hammers.

Later examples of the Webley "Pug" bear a startling resemblance to Charter Arms "Pug",. This resemblance is particularly pronounced in early Charter Arms' Models. (Is it possible that Charter Arms' R&D people were Sherlock Holmes fans?)

Comparing both "Pugs" would very likely reveal that while the Charter Arms piece might be made of superior materials and has a superior ejection system and a rebounding hammer the Webley revolver would most likely exhibit superior fit and finish and would feature more appropriate cartridges. (Speaking for myself I have never much enjoyed shooting .44 Special cartridges in any type of Charter Arms "Bullldog" revolver though later examples that come equipped with rubber grips make the experience a bit more pleasant. Perhaps a .44 Russian class cartridge might make such a gun a bit easier to control and more pleasant to shoot. On the other hand, the factory ballistics of the .44 Special LRN round are not all that different from those of its .44 Russian parent.)

Another advantage that the Webley "Pug" would offer would be psychological. With a Webley one can easily fantasize that one might some day hear, "Come, Watson, come! The game's afoot!"
 
How very interesting. I'm so glad you found the reference you wanted.
Before your post I knew of only two Webley revolvers that had a safety catch, now I know of a third.

If only we could deduce the jackknife Holmes used in a similar fashion :D
 
Jacknife,

Thanks.

I think that I might have missed something. I remember reading that the Webley Mark III had a manual safety catch. I gather that I missed the third model. Would you care to help me out?

You continue to be right about Holmes' jack knife. of course. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could step into a "hollodeck" and find out for sure?:D
 
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