Time Traveling Knives

zzyzzogeton

zzyzzogeton

Joined
Feb 17, 2013
Messages
6,172
I always say that when you see stuff that is out of place in movies and TV shows, it's just the way Hollyweird does things - their way.

Every now and then, though, rather than just seeing something a little out of kilter, the item is really out of place.

I just got through watch an episode of BONAZA, season 5 Episode 5, A Toy Soldier. Time frame for the episode would be 1861 to 1865 because President Lincoln is mentioned in the show.

In that episode, the primary male Paiute (the only one with a speaking role) is packing a sheath knife at 2 o'clock. Now that in and of itself is not unusual, although it is an uncomfortable location while riding a horse. What was really out of place was that the knife was a thick pommel WW2 vintage 1219C2/USN-MK2.

The "thick" pommel was shined up and the 5 grooves in the stacked leather handle were clearly visible in a relative tight shot near the end of the show. Since Kabar didn't make any replica thick pommels until 1976 and Utica (1961) and Camillus (1962) only made thin pommels under their new contracts, the version had to be a WW2 knife.

So a 1943 made knife was used in a 1963 episode about fake events in 1861-1865.

I am technologically inept when it comes to getting screen shots from a TV show, but if someone else can dig it out for posting, that would great. The best shot is about 3 minutes before the end of the episode when the Paiute dismounts with a hop in front of a cabin.

Has anyone else ever identified a time traveling knife on a show?
 
Not TV shows, but...

The Magnificent Seven (1960): James Coburn's character uses a 1950s-era Italian-style switchblade as his knife of choice.

Summer of Sam (1999). Set in 1977, about the Son of Sam killings. IIRC, there's a scene in a club where a performer pulls out a 1990s-era liner lock knife.

Ip Man 3. Set during the 1950s, a thug pulls out a modern, 'tactical'-looking automatic/switchblade.

Jim
 
cold steel sure is a time tested brand :)
flight_of_intruder.jpg

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/history-of-cold-steel-trail-masters-and-recon-scout.1567738/
 
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I'm not 100% on this one, but in a scene from Kong of Skull Island (2017), which is set in the year 1973, there is a more modern, post-1970s (possibly 1990s or 2K design, IIRC), partially-serrated Ka-Bar shown.

Jim
 
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Meanwhile, back at Blade Forums readers homes... One of the knives in my kitchen knife block is one of my father’s Swedish-made 1950’s hunting knives and I still use it.
 
It's not just knives in the movies this is subject too. There's 2 circumstances that seem to feed this.

One is lazy propmasters or productions where a scene calls for a knife and they just chuck whatever they can find in the shot and not care.

Second is when the director sees something (like that push dagger) and falls in love with the image and demands that's what is in the shot despite the factual inaccuracy.
 
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