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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!!

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.

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