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The Forrest Bowie is an old Bowie that follows the general lines of original Bowies, but school is out on it. It may have just been a stage knife. It cannot have been the original sandbar fight knife as some claim because Rezin (the man best able to know) says the sandbar knife blade was only 9.25" long. The Forrest knife blade is near a foot long. Otherwise the Forrest knife is a good representation of the original knife.
 
Mike Roberts said:
Ah, yes. The Musso Bowie is IMHO a cartoon Bowie and most experts dismiss it (but don't tell Joe Musso or he'll sue you)--the owner is its main supporter, but he has foisted it on several movie producers. The Moore Bowie is also very dubious. It is presently in the Little Rock Ark territorial museum separate from the other Bowies with noncommittal commentary. The long coffin handled knife you show and attribute to Rezin is actually attributed to James Black of Ark by alot of experts. It is a big version of the Carrigan knife. It is a real Bowie, the other two may be fakes. Certainly the Musso Bowie is identical to another one that has been shown to be a fake that was originally pictured on the cover of Peterson's book American Knives. One Bowie expert (Ben Palmer) wrote that he suspected any brass-backed Bowie to be a fake.

Valid points, I know some folks that have have personally handled the Musso Bowie, and find it although a handsome knife, too large and unwieldy, and a bit too thin at the tip for serious work. Having handled a few replica knives of simila make I tend to agree with that assessment.

Supposedly the Musso knife has been confirmed by some analysis to be at least 150 years old, I dunno. Your point about brass back Bowies is one that is well taken, and I also have heard comment about.

I am not a knife expert, but I do know a couple of friends who are much more involved, and they have some interesting comments about the wherewithal of these knives as well.

What is fascinating to me is that if only these blades could talk! It just makes me want to learn more!

Davy
 
The 'original' Bowie knife I pictured in my post above has the following info:

The knife was given to a well known actor by the name of Edwin Forrest by his friend, Jim Bowie. The knife was kept in the Forrest family until 1989. It is 17 inches in overall length. It is documented to have been given to Mr. Forrest by Bowie in February, 1829 in Natchez, Mississippi


WB
 
Two points: (1) the Musso knife has not been dated to 150 yrs ago--you can't do that, and even if you could date the materials it does not mean that the knife is that old--it could be made last week of old materials.
(2) The Forrest knife has not been documented to everyone's satisfaction to have been the one Bowie supposedly gave the actor. See Flayderman's new book on Bowies for a discussion (although I add that Flayderman is a skeptic on almost all Bowie history and knives).
Bowie knife history is widely and actively debated by so-called experts. There is little consensus. Some dismiss the Black story as myth, most dismiss the Moore Bowie and a few brave ones dismiss the Musso one (he has a bad habit of scaring people into agreement with threatened lawsuits). Of course anyone who owned the actual Alamo Bowie would own a priceless piece and could demand a million bucks or more for it probably. So there are reasons to push a point of view or a knife. The Alamo Bowie is lost in time. The sandbar knife, according to family history, was lost in a river in Louisiana by a Bowie descendant. Jim and Rezin Bowie owned several knives over the years and several of Rezin's knives do survive today. A third brother John appears not to have been such a knifeman and he ended up in Helena Ark as a farmer--not far from my family's farm. Rezin went blind and had to give up the active life. Of course Jim died in the Alamo, 1836. In that short span, 1827 (sandbar fight) to 1836 a legend was born that lives today. But alot of it is just legend. After 1827 many American and Sheffield cutlers flooded the market with their own idea of a Bowie knife. Thus the confusion today....
 
Well if one of the Mex soldiers at the Alamo picked up what we know of the "Alamo Bowie" knife (assuming he actually had one at the 'Mo :hmm: ) ... and it made it back to Mexico, or it was not dropped in Buffler Bayou at San Jacinto with all the Mex dead, then it was probably choppin corn or cane down in Mexico in short order! :shocked2: :(

Davy
 
There is an interesting story by Noah Smithwick who wrote [when he was in his 90s] that he made a copy of the sandbar knife for Jim Bowie when he first came to Texas. He was a blacksmith. He claimed Bowie brought him the sandbar knife, which Bowie had someone 'pretty-up', replacing the plain wood grips and adding silver trim. Bowie said he didn't want to further mar the knife that saved his life and wanted a plain copy made. Smithwick claims he made a plain wood handled knife with a blade 10"x2". Then he said he made other like copies for general sale. I have seen a drawing of a reputed Smithwick knife and it was plain but had a cross guard. A similar Bowie was owned by Sam Houston (you can google up a pic of it). Such a knife would not have stood out among the many that Texans carried in those days--for nearly every man had a Bowie knife. Jim's last knife is lost--perhaps a souvenir, but an unrecognizable one. It was not special--the MAN was special.
 
I would like to address the large and unwieldly
aspect of origonal "Bowies"...many knives of this
era (1830s-1850s) were huge and some that I have seen and handled were definately "unwieldly" but authentic museum "Bowies" none the less...not to imply they were made or owned by any member of the
Bowie family...

In my opinion the nicest...biggest...and oldest
one Ive ever seen and handled beonged to an early Texas ranger...it seems alot of these early smith made"Bowies" have a southern or "southwestern" history....later the professional Shefield cutlers and custom Frisco makers fired up production too...those knives are more refined
and generaslly smaller...but that was
1850s and 1860s I beleive...

Thats why I was wondering about the "fur Trade"
inference that began this thread...Im no expert
but I've never really associated bowies with mountain men...

Just my own 2 cents...

T.Albert
 
WeaselBreath said:
Here is the image of the coffin handled knife dated 1835 from the book I mentioned in my above post:
knife_01.jpg


Here is the image of what is supposed to be the original Bowie from the same book:
knife_02.jpg


WB

Knowin' absoultley nothin' about the subject I'm sceptical about the bottom knife in this pic. Ain't the rivets way too big to be called pins?
 
Very interesting indeed. Is the Moore "bowie" the same one Dixie was selling awhile back with the story that it was found in Mexico and wound up owned by a Texas sheriff? As to the other well known Bowie, rumor has long been that there may have been several of them, but that's just a rumor you understand.If I could have my choice of early bowies I would think a long time before I passed on Plates 48 and 49 of "American Primitive Knives 1770-1870" by Gordon B. Minnis. These are truly in the tradition of the Southern "big knife".
Tom Patton
 
Hey Mike R.

Out of curiosity do you know, or have you heard of noted author J.R. Edmondsen? He has written a bit about the Bowie knife in various magazines, etc. Just curious ...

Davy
 
Here is the Houston knife in question .. and a link to an article abut it!
knif0103.jpg

[url] http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/jan03/knif0103.htm[/url]

Davy
 
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I like the blade shape, but I don't like the guard. A Green River would work, but I saw one on the[url] swampfoxknives.com[/url] website with blighted chestnut handels that I was thinking about.
 
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Davy said:
Hey Mike R.

Out of curiosity do you know, or have you heard of noted author J.R. Edmondsen? He has written a bit about the Bowie knife in various magazines, etc. Just curious ...

Davy
Yes. I have read most of his articles.
 
Slamfire, what appear to be rivets are pins with washers around them. I have seen similar construction on dated early knives. There seems to be agreement that this knife is old, but controversy over its lineage. It DID come from a collection of actor Forrest's things and has been assumed to be the knife Forrest claimed Bowie gave him (they may have known each other), but Forrest also played a stage role that called for a big knife and it may be a prop--it is a real knife, not a toy, however. I cannot be the sandbar knife as some have claimed because the dimensions are wrong (if we believe the testimony of brother Rezin). The problem with Bowie knife lore is that it relies mainly on the writings/memories of people of the era or a slightly later period--and we all know from the various courtroom dramas how juries weigh such evidence....
 
Okwaho, yes, the Moore Bowie has been reproduced in several editions. The original, which I have seen up close, is an impressive old knife, but hardly what most experts would consider Bowie to have carried. I think it is a Mexican knife. The Musso knife I think is a fake (risking lawsuit from Mr. Musso), but that is based on photos and what I know about knives, knife history, materials dating, etc...I have personal attachment to the so-called James Black knives through family history, so I am not impartial on that subject, perhaps, but aspects of that story rings true to me, whereas they do not to some skeptics. There WAS a James Black (some "experts" have written that he was myth). He did live and work as a blacksmith and silversmith in Washington, Ark. The Bowies did frequent the area (brother John owned a plantation in Ark; the brothers ran slaves up there from the coast; the brothers speculated in land in Ark). There is early newspaper story "documentation" (for what that is worth) for the Black making a Bowie knife story. There is family history related to the Carrigan knife as a Black made knife. There are numerous points of similarity between the Carrigan knife and several other coffin handled knives that point to the same maker (Black). These knives have been studied by master knifesmiths and compared to their satisfaction--one even said he thought the handles of a couple came from the same walnut tree as the Carrigan knife. There is a "Black-made" coffin handled knife inscribed as a gift from "Col. Bowie". And then there is the infamous "Bowie No.1" which now resides in the Territorial Museum in Little Rock. A huge Black made knife with a 13" blade engraved "Bowie No.1" on a silver plate inlaid into the handle. What does that mean? There are other points, but those are the main ones...Clearly Black did not make the sandbar knife (but did he "pretty it up"?--Noah Smithwick relates that Bowie had it mounted in silver and Black was a silversmith). Clearly Rezin had several knives made by other people such as Shively of Phila. and Searles of Baton Rouge. What James was carrying in the Alamo we will never know....
 
Good post and if you will Email me your phone No. we can talk privately about many things: sailing ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings and maybe some not so "well known" knives and guns.
Tom Patton
 
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