What is the American Knife?

jdeeblade, you guys down under into Bowies too? Mick Dundee proudly showed his off to a punk with a switchblade...that was real right? :D
 
The "bowie" may get the popular nod, but the Green River comes closer to the truth IMO.

Paul
 
When I think American I think of the bowie knife, Jack knife, Colt six shooter, lever rifle, Harley Davidson motorcycles and good old fashion apple pie! Yuuummmmy! :D

Collecter
 
Selfinflicted. Yes we are into bowies and have been for a long time. Bowies were prevalent in the goldfields in victoria in the 1850's mostly if not all were imports from sheffield. Have also seen examples of folding bowies. Many californians were out here during goldrush period in fact a place called californian gully is about 50ks down the road. In addition to bowies we had a number of green river hunter type knives and one was called a boundary rider.
 
Spatha,

Excellent reply. I was thinking the same...but there is one minor diffrence that could qualify the bowie as "American"...the Sharpned top 1/4 of the blade used for back cuts.

Are there examples of European Sax having that? ( This is a real question so any one with info please feal fee to answer).

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In light of this, my answer would be : Camillus "Ka-bar"/ Marine fighter. Not because it is a 100% historicaly unique design, but because for 60 years this has been the "American" combat knife.

(Buck 110 gets punted IMHO only because its not as glamorous.)
 
Yep, the Bowie. The best part about this thread is it has inspired me to get a "real" Bowie. Not a 'utility Bowie', or 'Nor'east Bowie', but a genuine replica of the vision in my brain Bowie. Yeah baby.
 
the bowie has a big part in american history, but it's shape is not an american invention.
You can find the blade shape on spanish fighting knifes, that have been there about 100 ago.

I think that if you want to look for "the american knife" you'll have to serach in the last years. for example the "tactical folder (prybar)" is an american invention. you wont find something like that in other typical knife countrys like germany, sweden, italy, spain, england.
 
The Bowie was the first thing that poped in to my head....HURT like hell too.
 
The bowie knife is truely American. Yes, there were European knives that were inspiration to the original bowie makers, and by far the majority were made in England, but the bowie knife is American through and through.
 
It is only a Frenchman point of view, but, when I’m thinking about a traditional American knife, I firstly see the Buck 110.

It is maybe the American literature or the movies (I unfortunately never have the chance to visit the USA), but the bowie style knives and tomahawks remind me necessarily the US far-west period… (and not any kind of European knife)
 
surfer:

Show me a bowie type knife from England or Spain [ old world ] that has the sharpened clip made before the knife which James Black made for Resin Bowie as a gift to his brother.

Resin designed the knife, obviously with input from past designs [ usually of Spanish lineage, not English ], English knife makers [ Sheffield being the biggest in that era ], copied the original Bowie and shipped them enmasse to the US after it had become popular in the Southeast US.

In New Orleans around 1820-1840's, the French and Spanish were vying for control of the crescent city, it being divided almost in half as to land ownership.

Both sides were enamored with the design and schools were established in the city where "gentlemen" would get training in french and spanish long knife techniques, depending on their lineage.

They [ both sides ]adopted the Bowie knife, but the spaniards were the better at dueling for the most part in that era.

Pepe Luna was considered the epitome of a knife fighter in the deep south using the Bowie in the classic espada y daga [ sword and dagger ].

The English copied the design from America for the sharpened spine. Their factories pumped out some great work as they had more experience in the knife making business, being an old world country unlike the rather young USA.

Brownie
 
How about push-daggers? Maybe not "the" typical american knife, but for me "one" of the typical american knives. Or I am wrong regarding the origin of that knife type?
 
I have only seen one knife attributed to Rezin Bowie that had what appeared to be a sharpened clip. And that Knife looked alot more like a Collins bowie than any of the other knives that I have seen with his name in the description. I did find one blurb on the net where he states that the first bowie was made by him and was a hunting knife and built by a hired hand named Cliffe. I've also read that it was that knife that J.Bowie used in the sand bar fight and that he sought out Black to square away some design changes, namely a guard. There is one portrait I've seen that shows him with a large bladed knife that has a d guard made from a sword hilt. But I think that one was actually a gift from his brother in law.

So I'm going at ease the rant and say that for me the american knife is the D guard Bowie.
btw
I have seen sax with a distinct clip, I dont' know if they were sharpened or not (probablly not)
 
Brownie, I think you're right!
I was refering to that two knives

http://images.google.es/imgres?imgu...s?q=spanish+knife&svnum=10&hl=ca&lr=&ie=UTF-8

and

http://images.google.es/imgres?imgu...s?q=spanish+knife&svnum=10&hl=ca&lr=&ie=UTF-8

but than I saw, that they're from 19th century.
Once I saw a drawing of a knive fight in spain about 18th century, one had a huge clasp knife with a strange bladeform.
It was like tanto blade, but upside down, the large cutting edge sharpened like the 45º clip too.
 
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