The Bowie Knife

ELCOME to the Oregon Knife Collectors At the Show don’t miss the special live only. Just like eBay, but real and live. Anyone can WAssociation Special Show Knewslettter. On demonstrations on Saturday. This year we enter to bid in the Silent Auction. See the display Saturday, April 13, and Sunday, April 14, we want have: Blade Forging, Flint Knapping, Kitchen cases at the Club Table to make a bid on some extra to welcome you and your friends and family to the Cutlery Seminar, Martial Arts, Scrimshaw, Self special knives . famous and spectacular OREGON KNIFE SHOW Defense, Sharpening Knives, Sword Fighting Along the side walls, we will have 20 & SALE. Now the Largest Global Organizational Demonstrations and Bowie knife events. MUSEUM QUALITY KNIFE AND CUTLERY Knife Show east and west of the Mississippi River. Don’t miss the FREE knife identification and COLLECTIONS ON DISPLAY for your enjoyment The OREGON KNIFE SHOW happens just once appraisal by Tommy Clark from Marion VA and education, in addition to our hundreds of tables of a year at the Lane Events Center EXHIBIT HALL, (Table N01) - Mark Zalesky from Knoxville TN hand-made, factory and antique knives for sale. Now 796 West 13th Avenue in Eugene, Oregon. April (Table N02) and Mike Silvey, military knives, 371 tables! When you arrive you can get lots more 13 - 14. Saturday 8:00AM - 5:00PM. Sunday from Cameron Park CA (Table J14). information about the Oregon Knife Show and about 9:00AM - 3:00PM. Two day admission $6.00. When you arrive sign up for a chance to win a special the Oregon Knife Collectors Association (OKCA) at Keep your ticket stub for reentry both days. door prize. We will have a Silent Auction Saturday the Club Table, to the left of the entrance. This instant surge in popularity is likely The Bowie Knife one of the reasons that there are so many – A (Very!) Brief Introduction different forms of bowie knives, and one Mark Zalesky Searless Style Bowie of the hindrances to researchers seeking - Finally, the Searles or straight-back This April, the Oregon Knife Show an understanding of early bowies. style is named after gunsmith/cutler hosts the annual meeting of the Antique It’s easy for us to forget that practical Daniel Searles, whose shop in Baton Bowie Knife Association. This is no photography did not exist in 1827, and that Rouge, Louisiana, turned out several everyday occurrence, and I hope that the printed illustrations were infrequently impressive bowies with wide, straight ABKA’ers will enjoy the experience as used and often inaccurate. Coupled with backed blades and handles generally much as I think the OKCA’ers will. the extremely vague descriptions of the resembling the mediterranean dirk in bowie in early accounts, it’s no wonder For those who might be a little rusty form. At least one of these knives was that today’s historians don’t really know on things “bowie,” the following short presented by James Bowie’s brother, what James Bowie’s knife looked like – preface might be of some use. [I feel a Rezin; and another appears to have been the only people that knew in 1827 were bit like it’s an attempt to write the history Rezin’s personal knife. A third knife those who had seen it firsthand! of Western civilization in 500 words or of similar form was also presented by less, but we’ll give it a go anyway!] So, what did the early bowie knives look Rezin Bowie to a family friend, but it like? Poll collectors and historians in the was made by the famous Philadelphia The bowie knife has been called know, and you’ll find three forms that cutler Henry Schively. A fourth, similar “America’s Knife” – a lofty title, but one seem to stand out as the earliest popular in form but its maker unknown, is said to well earned. It helped to open the Western styles: the “coffin-handle” bowies, have been presented by James Bowie to frontier, to free Texas from Mexico, the “dogbone” handle bowies, and the the actor Edwin Forrest, and will in fact to name “bloody Kansas,” and armed Searles style, all three of which seem be on display at this year’s Show. These brother against brother in this nation’s to have originated in the Deep South – knives with connections to the Bowie Civil War. And while many have claimed Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. family lend additional significance to that it also died in that conflict, it’s hard this form. to deny that the favored knives in the more lawless sections of California and It’s my belief that these three are the the far west were anything but further earliest styles that achieved popularity, evolutions of the bowie. From its birth and that the tremendous variety of forms to the present day, surely no American Coffin-handle Bowie that followed can be traced to them. knife has captured more imaginations. Others that soon appeared on the scene - “Coffin-handle” bowies have handles included the “waisted” handle types of The bowie knife craze was sparked by a that narrow in the middle, and an end makers like Philadelphia’s English & duel gone wrong on a Mississippi River with angled corners vaguely resembling Hubers, perhaps a modification of the sandbar just above Natchez, Mississippi, a coffin in shape. The earliest “coffin coffin hilt style; and the best known style on Wednesday, September 19, 1827. hilt” bowies were made without guards, of the aforementioned Henry Schively, After the duel’s principals fired the though crossguards to protect the hand which resembles nothing so much as a usual two exchanges without effect from sliding up the sharp blade soon large butcher knife with a guard added – and began to leave the field on friendly appeared. Controversy notwithstanding, but its straight backed blade likely owes terms, some of the “seconds” declared recent research has suggested that some something to the Searles type. the affair unsettled, and commenced of the earliest examples of this style may an attack resulting in what was called At first, these knives were crafted by have originated in southern Arkansas. a “melee or rough fight.” Among those the fine cutlers, gunsmiths, and surgical involved was a man by the name of instrument makers – the “custom James Bowie who, despite being shot in knifemakers” of the day, as well as by the lung and thigh and suffering seven the tool and industrial knifemakers wounds from sword canes, was able to whose goods were more practical than kill his primary aggressor using what beautiful. Far outproducing all of these, Dogbone Style Bowie the press described as “a large butcher though, were the factories of Sheffield, knife.” Bowie survived, and newspaper - The “dogbone” style also draws its England, where production steps were accounts of these events captured the name from the shape of the handle, which divided among specialized workers, public’s imagination, prompting law resembles half of a large leg bone, bulbous and the quality ranged anywhere from abiding – and otherwise – citizens across on the end. None of the early examples of the very finest to fine looking goods at the country to seek out local cutlers and this style have been found with a maker’s cheap prices. Though the knives were merchants for “a knife like Bowie’s,” or mark, but they are thought to have Continued on page 5 more simply, a “bowie knife.” originated in Mississippi or Louisiana. Page 2 As in all collecting What Can U Expect circles there are To See At A Knife Show? specialists that home in on special A knife is man’s earliest tool. It has arenas of a subject. evolved from a simple tool to a symbol See the displays for royalty and to an art form. It is used that adorn the walls daily in all facets of our lives and has on the perimeter also become a protector of freedoms in of the room. These our battles. The knife can be made of are truly museum steel but also stone, bronze, ceramic or quality displays. other exotic materials. Enjoy and learn from them. On Saturday we have seminars and demonstrations digging weeds with it, as has happened in that will show the making of stone some cases. Or in some cases you might knives, scrimshaw, culturally unique want to even upgrade your weed digger knives, skills at knife handling and the and attack those weeds with a little class. making of knives through forging. We will have it all at this year’s spectacular This organization has encouraged 371 table all knife show. donations which are used for two purposes. We have door prize drawings, As you wander the aisles of our Show, and some pretty spiffy knives are given The knife at our Show takes on a you can stop at any of the custom to lucky winners. We will also have new definition under the umbrella of maker’s tables and examine their skill our Silent Auction on Saturday. These “anything that goes cut.” It can mean and craft. You can stop at the tables are the extra special knives that are a butter knife, a corkscrew, a hat pin, a where you will find knife collectors donated to help fund our event and are hunting knife, a kitchen knife, a military selling their knives and find out why that sometimes one-of-a-kind knives or knife, a pocketknife, scissors, a sword, knife in your tackle box or the one in the special collector’s knives.

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