Old Patch Knife

[Buddy Thomason]

At least that's what the seller told me this was - a patch knife. Guess I'd call it a dagger or small fighting knife. Seller represented this as originating in America during the early mid-1800s. He also represented the sheath as original. Looks like it could be buffalo hide. It's thick and quite textured. There are no markings. Not sure about any of this but it does look old and it is kind of cool. Cost? A whopping $140. The guard is loose, OAL is is 7 3/4 in. and blade is 4 3/8 in. Here are some images:

[rhrocker]

Nice score Buddy. Imagination can always help with it's history.

[Don Halter]

Pretty cool looking. Is that antler for the slabs? It has a neat "American history" look to it!

I was expecting a "little" patch knife when I saw the topic.

[hammerdownnow]

I wanna call it a "Rio Grande" style bowie. Looks like it would make a nice knife to match a Geronimo cowboy rig reproduction posted over in the sheath making forum.

[hammerdownnow]

Here is an old rig that would look nice with that bowie.

[Buddy Thomason]

Yeah, it's not my idea of a 'patch knife' either. You could call it a bowie if you define bowie as 'a knife designed for hunting and fighting' except that it's really pretty small with a blade under 4 1/2 inches. There's no way the sheath is original though - it's in way too good shape to be 150 years old. The knife itself is similar to frontier knives pictured in several of my reference books (Thanks Chuck!) and are generally called 'fighting knives' or 'daggers.' Slabs are antler and show some shrinkage indicating it has some age to it.

The seller (a respected dealer in old authentic knives) made a funny comment though. I said it didn't look like any 'patch knife' I'd ever seen or seen pictures of as they all seem to have only one sharpened edge. He said, "Folks back then were interested in carrying what worked. Two edges is better than one because they didn't want to get caught out in a situation and be compromised with a dull blade."

While this makes sense on one level, I wonder if you can ever really trust what anybody says about anything in this area of old antique knives and the things I've mentioned in this thread that didn't make sense to me seem to confirm my suspicion. Nobody that I know doubts this particular person's integrity. But he also said, "It's definitely pre Civil War." Who the heck knows?

In this case, I suspect the knife is authentic, the sheath is new and, as Roc (hammerdownnow) suggests above - it may have been a back-up side-arm carried on someone's belt. As such it could be much younger than the 1st half of the 19th century. I didn't buy it because I thought it was truly old and authentic. I just liked it and it was cheap.

In thinking about this I finally got what Robert (rhrocker) meant above when he said, "Imagination can always help with its history." Old and authentic or not, all in all, it's design and craftsmanship speak clearly of a time in history that I often think about when I find myself wondering, "What would it have been like to be alive in America 150 years ago?"

[hammerdownnow]

As they say, "buy the knife, not the story", which you have done. Part of the fun is the speculation, of the origin of unknown knives. Being that this one is small it could be put in the catagory of a cowboy bowie. Not being asked to speculate rarely stops me, so....
This knfe looks vaguely Sheffield made to me. During the time Sheffield England exported most of the Bowies skinners and trade knives to the U.S. American made "to look Sheffield" were made here in the states and has a small category in the books. They were rarley marked. These seem to be more rare and may someday surpass the Sheffields in value. Good knife steel was a rare and valuable commodity back then. It took much love and sacrifice to make a knife like this back then. Knives rich in history and soul have a way of finding you Buddy.

[Roger Gregory]

That's a really interesting piece of work. The blade looks like it could be Sheffield and so does the guard, though both look like they've been in the wars! The handle slabs don't look very Sheffield though do they? Perhaps they are replacements, like the sheath, or perhaps they are the originals and the knife has a very American history all of its own.

Roger

[Buddy Thomason]

Roc & Roger,
Those are good observations. Sheffield knives flooded America prior to the development of any organized knife-making industry here. Later, many Sheffield workers came to America to work in the fledgling knife industry. So, Sheffield influence as well as Sheffield products were extant and certainly influenced knife-making. Likewise, the precedent for refurbishing old worn or broken stuff with current design ideas and materials goes back as far as tool-making in general. Oh, if knives could talk!
BT

[rhrocker]

Buddy, would it completely destroy it's value to attempt to take the scales off? May (or, of course, may not) be something on the tang. I'm afraid that if it were in my posession, I'd soon be looking for some rivits and a way to antique them.

[Jason Cutter]

I have no clue whatsoever about value of such items, but I always thought that if the guard is loose, it would probably be a sign of age and of a life of hard use. It gives me the impression that this one was no throwaway knife. Jason.