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Comment by Shlomo ben Maved on May 19, 2015 at 4:41

That portrait of Bowie is pure hokum and done decades after his death;

This is the only known portrait done when Bowie was alive C.1820 and before the Sandbar fight (1827) from the Texas Historical Board.

Big problem with the Black (1800-1872) photo--that photo process wasn't invented until 1839 and Black didn't move in with Buzzard until 1842 after receiving facial wounds while recovering from a fever (1835) from William Shaw that nearly completely (and eventually) blinded him.

James Black of Washington, Arkansas, has been a problem for knife collectors from the time that Raymond Thorp wrote the pioneering study Bowie Knife, first published in 1948.  Thorp included the reminiscences of Daniel Webster Jones about Black making a knife for Jim Bowie, then going blind and eventually forgetting his own secret process for tempering steel. Fast on its heels of Bowie Knife came the book (1951), and then the movie, The Iron Mistress (1952), bringing James Black to the masses as a component of the Jim Bowie legend.  In Bowie Knife Black was the inventor of the classic cross-guarded, clipped-pointed bowie, which he made for Jim Bowie.  The Iron Mistress made this role cosmic by having Black forge the blade from a meteorite.   The problem for knife collectors rested in the lack of Black-made knives, or, even, much evidence on Black himself. 

In “The American Arms Collector,” July, 1957, Ben Palmer performed a thoughtful analysis on the Daniel Webster Jones account (1903) of the James Black story.  He pursued evidence for a silversmith in Philadelphia by the name of James Black, but concluded that the artisan listed in 1795 could not be the same person who was born, according to the Jones account, in 1800.  He asked a series of questions, such as where are the knives that Black is supposed to have made? Would he have failed to mark his work?  He concluded that Jones was not old enough to see Black work before his eyesight failed, and that Jones, a “wide eyed little boy” served as an eager audience to “the blind pauper playing the great man.  Later, tales told by a senile old man.  Of such stuff dreams are made, and all too often, History.”

https://www.historicarkansas.org/pdf/RevisitingBlackQuestion.pdf

Comment by Ron Cooper on May 19, 2015 at 2:13

Daguerreotype of Bowie knife inventor James Black (right) and Jacob Buzzard, the first judge of Lafayette County; 1831. Black lived with Buzzard for a time.

Courtesy of the Arkansas History Commission

"Jim Bowie, American pioneer and hero, and his signature knife. Born in Kentucky, Bowie lived in Louisiana and died at the Alamo."

~~~~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~~~~**********~~~~~~~~~~

For me, I'll be happy to continue calling just about any large clip point fixed blade knife a Bowie style knife. Regardless of when it was made. Your mileage may vary.

Comment by Max McGruder on May 19, 2015 at 1:16

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lnb01

Comment by Max McGruder on May 19, 2015 at 1:13

http://www.historicarkansas.org/knife_gallery/

Comment by Max McGruder on May 19, 2015 at 1:13

Well heres some food for thought,

http://www.historicarkansas.org/collections/knives.aspx?id=56

Comment by Shlomo ben Maved on May 18, 2015 at 16:06

I would call that a clip point Sheffield pattern fixed blade.

Well Levine is pretentious.

The thing is Bowie had two different knives--one for the Sandbar Fight and another one for the Alamo.  We know that as the 1st was given to a judge friend and believed to be a Butcher pattern (named after the maker not the profession) and then lost. 

Butcher Pattern

We know Black made a knife for him, whether it was before or after the Sandbar that we don't know and whether Jim, Rezin or Black designed it is also in contention.

The Bowie brothers, after the fight, had many knife designers wanting them to sell their products and henceforth there are a dozen different patterned Bowie knives.

There is no one Bowie pattern especially since NO ONE knows what either knife actually looked like.

What gets me is that there were schools of knife fighting opened up after the Sandbar styed after the "Bowie Technique".  A knife fighter of "such repute" that he only had one fight in his life, which he nearly lost and then of course his supposed deathbed fictional fight to the finish.

To name a few:

Ron Frazier San Francisco (and/or California) Pattern Bowie

Gil Hibben Alamo (Iron Mistress) Bowie

J. Owenby Sheffield (with sharpened swage) Pattern Bowie made after the 1840s

Harvey J. Dean Searles Pattern

Comment by Max McGruder on May 18, 2015 at 16:02

That is possible being his bro.

Comment by Max McGruder on May 18, 2015 at 15:59

Heres a magazine i have from 1990.
[URL=http://s257.photobucket.com/user/xamrm/media/Light%20box/Knife%20related%20Odds%20and%20Ends/010-2.jpg.html][IMG]http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh223/xamrm/Light%20box/Knife%20...[/IMG][/URL]

Comment by Bryan OShaughnessy on May 18, 2015 at 15:58

I believe that the portrait you're referring to pictures James' brother, Rezin Bowie, with "the" knife in his belt.  I think I saw this in Knife World Magazine.

Comment by Max McGruder on May 18, 2015 at 15:53

Well said!! Also ive heard that J Bowies knife looked more like a big kitchen knife as we know them today. I also heard theres a portrait that his knife is supposed to be pictured in on his belt. Many stories! I go by as known today. The Bowie is a big knife with a clip point and the Western is a good example!!

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