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Comment by Tobias Gibson on May 18, 2015 at 15:05

I'll probably be labeled a blasphemer but I think Levine (at times) is a tad pretentious and sometimes flat out wrong. In truth there is only one true Bowie knife and no one knows exactly what it looked like. Afterwards there were many knives purported to have been made to the specs of the original Bowie knife but they were made based on a general description To give an arbitrary cut off date of 1880 is typical of Levine.

Why 1880? That's 44 years after Jim Bowie died and well after his legendary knife was lost history. Did people just make fake Bowie knives starting in 1881? Did knife makers lose the recipe? If you base this on Bowie's coming out of Sheffield then did they stop making knives in Sheffield in 1880.

And considering nobody knows what his knife looked like we are just left with a general description. So why are the pre 1880 Bowie knives considered true? All that is known for sure was that Jim Bowie carried a large fixed blade knife with a clip point and a full cross guard. James Black may have been the black smith who made it. It isn't even believed that Bowie used this knife at the sandbar fight, his only historically documented knife fight! But if you made a knife before 1880 based on a general description you get to truthfully call it a Bowie but if you made the same knife a year later you're a dang liar?

I'm sure a lot of people these day look at the Western #49 knife and don't hesitate to call it a Bowie knife. After all Western called it a Bowie! Indeed many will hold it up as the definition of a classic Bowie knife! It might not be the knife Jim Bowie carried but it is the Bowie knife people envision him carrying!

It fits the general description and it fits the legend. Who really cares if it was made well after 1880! ( I mean besides Levine!)

As they say if it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck and swims like a duck then it's a duck! Ducks didn't arbitrarily stop being ducks in 1880. And Bowie knives didn't stop being made in 1880 either.

And if a small knife looks like a Bowie then it's a small Bowie. Stepping off my blasphemous soap box.

Comment by Max McGruder on May 18, 2015 at 14:52

Man id sure like to see yours from 1880. Me don't have any that old. But do have a few from 1980s that i consider a large Bowie!!

Comment by Michael Squier on May 18, 2015 at 10:01

hmm, the only reason I hesitate on Bowie is the chapter in Levines book putting down anything after 1880 as not a true bowie, but the rest of America seems to disagree and calls many knives since then a bowie so...

Comment by Tobias Gibson on May 18, 2015 at 8:21

I think at the end of the day I would still call it a Small Bowie. The knife looks very much like a shrunk down Classic or Western Bowie. The reason I wouldn't call it a camp knife is because as a camp knife it really is somewhat sub-par. This is especially true if the term camp knife brings up visions of a Camp & Trail knife. The C&T knife is normally has a straight skinning or trailing point blade and a half guard. When I hear camp knife that's what I think of.

Comment by Michael Squier on May 18, 2015 at 8:14

"Boys Knife" sounds like a good pattern name to me, kind of like the boys rifles of the same era. I have a couple that are the same pattern but seem to nice to have been made for a kid, but there are some boys rofles like that too. so, "Boys Knife/Camp Knife"

Comment by Tobias Gibson on May 18, 2015 at 5:52

Bryan is correct in that these knives were marketed it toward young men and were often also called a "boys knife" for this reason.  I guess the thought was to  get Junior his own knife so that he could abuse it and not ruin one of mom's kitchen knives or dad's expensive hunting knife.

Comment by Bryan OShaughnessy on May 17, 2015 at 22:10

I think it bears a lot of names, most are  probably Boy Scout oriented.  It's best described by its function, a camp knife (lower case letters). Made by Imperial, the construction and sheath haven't changed for dozens of years, except the sheath has periodically been supplied as tan or darker brown.  In typical post-1949 Imperial fashion, it has a hollow handle, in this case, plastic.  I got mine in 1963, when I progressed from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  I was nine years old, I think.  (Rules and attitudes were a lot more slack back then.)  It had a black handle and a tan sheath.  At a scout meeting that had wood-burning art as a craft, I burned my initials into the back of the sheath.  I still have the knife, though I smashed the still shiny plastic handles and installed stacked-leather and then I shellacked them. I did a bad job of it and I wish I'd left it original.  No rust; it has a good stainless steel blade; as much as I dislike Imperial's decision to adopt hollow handles for their pocketknives, they have always made pretty good blades that usually outlast the usefulness of the knife itself.  I think I have three others now, all look exactly the same...with black plastic handles.

Comment by Tobias Gibson on May 17, 2015 at 15:40

I'd normally call it a Small Bowie.  Bit it could just as easily be a Bird & Trout,Small Game Hunter, or Camp Knife.  That one looks gorgeous, Michael. Apparently Utica calls it a "Sport Champ"     Colonial call theirs a "Cub Hunter"

KnifeMaker Comment by Chris Sievert on May 17, 2015 at 15:14

Camp Knife Michael Squire. At least that's what they were called when I was in Scouting. 

Comment by Michael Squier on May 17, 2015 at 14:47

Is there a name for this style of knife, I seem to be aquiring a few of them. Most have the blavk plastic handle but same sheath shape ande blade length. There must be a name for this pattern.

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