Penny Knife for Patches?

[Smokey Plainsman]

Hey gun buddies!

Alright you guys I been looking for a PERIOD CORRECT (1800-1840 timeframe) patch knife and means to tote it. Well guys it seems I learned of what they call a "penny knife" which based on original antiques takes the form as this:

Guys how period (1800-1840) would this knife be to carry in a shooting pouch for use as a patch knife? Did these knives exist in such form in America at that time?

Trying to be as HC/PC as possible. Please let me know, thanks guys!!

 

[tenngun]

One is in the L&C museum at point Disspointment. It’s thought to be Clark’s own knife and was found at his house.
Penny knifes we’re almost as common as clay pipes. And we know cutting patches at the muzzle was also common. Written accounts record a knife or drawing a knife from the belt. Any small knife in a persons kit would not be a patch knife, but an all around handy blade, peeling potatoes cutting bites of meat whittling trenails and no doubt cutting abpatch or two.

 

[tenngun]

 

[BrownBear]

There's a bottom line for any knife used to cut patches. It has to be sharper than sharp, and stay that way. If you're sawing to cut patches, it's not sharp enough. Getter done in a single swipe or go home.

If your penny knife is made with steel that meets the criteria, relax and be happy. If it dulls easily, give it a long walk on a short pier.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

There's a bottom line for any knife used to cut patches. It has to be sharper than sharp, and stay that way. If you're sawing to cut patches, it's not sharp enough. Getter done in a single swipe or go home.

If your penny knife is made with steel that meets the criteria, relax and be happy. If it dulls easily, give it a long walk on a short pier.

I know this to be true! Was just wondering, if it is period, if it is appropriate, if it is realistic, to use one of these penny knives to put in my shooting pouch as a patch knife, for an early-mid 19th century general American hunstman’s style equipage?

 

[tenngun]

They were sold to the people that went onto the frontier, how did they use them? Folks are recorded useing a knife to cut the patch with. Who can say that an eighteenth century knife sold in large numbers on the frontier in the eighteenth century was used for patch cutting? Who can say it wasn’t?

 

[Stumpkiller]

Here are some "French" pen knife/penny knife blades excavated from Fort Michilimacknac (1715-1781). Some are recognizable as fairly standard "pocket knife" blades. I carry a folder with a 3-1/2" blade that looks very much like "F" with bone scales. Works great to load up the ball block or cut at the muzzle.

http://colonialbaker.net/haches_and_bucherons.html

Though I have to say typically I use my belt knife. I like them sharp as well.

 

[Poboy]

Yeah, I tell ya.... it probably doesn't make THAT big a difference between trimming a square patch, or using a round one, but, I'm in the patch trimming school.

One thing is, how you do that, when you load up Speed loaders for quick follow ups?

Hmmmm....guess the best strategy is "One shot, one kill, always have and always will."

 

[Artificer]

There's a bottom line for any knife used to cut patches. It has to be sharper than sharp, and stay that way. If you're sawing to cut patches, it's not sharp enough. Getter done in a single swipe or go home.

If your penny knife is made with steel that meets the criteria, relax and be happy. If it dulls easily, give it a long walk on a short pier.

Good points!

OK, this is pure conjecture on my part. I think/believe the main belt knife would have been sharpened to what I call a "butcher knife" edge for general purpose cutting. A second knife like the penny knife, or earlier French folding knives already shown, would then be sharpened with a finer/lower angle edge that would cut patches better and/or been a finer edge for some fine detail skinning work.

So it make perfect sense to me that a folding knife with a fine edge to easily cut patches, as Brown Bear mentioned, would be just the ticket to use as a dedicated patch knife that is also correct for your period.

Gus

 

[Stumpkiller]

Yeah, I tell ya.... it probably doesn't make THAT big a difference between trimming a square patch, or using a round one, but, I'm in the patch trimming school.

One thing is, how you do that, when you load up Speed loaders for quick follow ups?

When you put a patch on a wood block, push the ball in and then cut it flush it is the same semi-round patch as they are when cut at the muzzle.

Not sure if that is the speed-loader you meant, though.

 

[Stophel]

To be very unpopular, which I suppose I'm used to.... the thing that people now are calling a "penny knife" is actually a "Trattenbacher Taschenfeitel", a VERY regional friction folding knife, made in Trattenbach, Austria. While the claim is that they go "way back", I don't know that they can really be considered an 18th century knife or not. Even so, it's not something that is likely to have been imported to colonial America, even if it did exist at the time. There is absolutely ZERO evidence of which I am aware, that such a thing existed in 18th century America. We have the remnants of lots of folding knives in known, dateable archaeological sites, and none of them even remotely resemble the Trattenbacher Taschenfeitel.

French friction folding knives and knife blades are found in huge quantities in Canada and around the Great Lakes... but they don't resemble the Taschenfeitel. In American colonial sites, spring back folders are found ("ball butt" Barlow knives, and the "soldiers' knife"...for lack of a better term). There really aren't any readily available reasonable facsimiles of 18th century folding knives out there, without spending hundreds on a custom made knife (or getting the cheapo Pakistani "soldier's knife"). "Penny knives" may be (relatively) inexpensive, but my honest opinion is that they are no more period correct than a Buck 110.

If you had a large, single blade Barlow knife, that would pretty well be functionally the same as so many knives of the period, though the form wouldn't really be the same... though I don't think it would be any worse than a Taschenfeitel... In fact, I've started doing just that, myself.

 

[Stophel]

Sorry, I don't know where I got 18th century from, when you want 1800-1840.... In which case, a Barlow type knife might still be closer to what you want.

 

[Eutycus]

Why the single blade Barlow? Did they not have double blades 200 years ago? I'm asking because I really dont know.

 

[Bo T]

I am going to pick up one of those 'soldiers' knives. If the 'semi' correct pattern is made in Pakistan. Then so be it. Much ado is made about the steel in the blade. Chances are high that it is as good as the steel (or) iron that the originals were made of. Take a whet stone with you to touch up the edge ever now and then. You can get a custom but then you are talking Franklins instead of Jacksons.

 

[Stophel]

I don't know when multiple blades became common (I know that technically, they go way back, but...). I would think that by 1840, though, multiple blade pocket knives would be regularly seen, but this is definitely not my time period.

 

[tenngun]

Why the single blade Barlow? Did they not have double blades 200 years ago? I'm asking because I really dont know.

Early knifes had single. Traditionaly double is thought to be 1870 or after.
But
When the steam ship Arabia was found, sunk in 1859 it had a barrel full of double blades knifes. I would hesitate to use one with a pre 1840 outfit but ‘could be’.

 

[Rifleman1776]

There's a bottom line for any knife used to cut patches. It has to be sharper than sharp, and stay that way. If you're sawing to cut patches, it's not sharp enough. Getter done in a single swipe or go home.

If your penny knife is made with steel that meets the criteria, relax and be happy. If it dulls easily, give it a long walk on a short pier.

Sorry, BB, don't completely agree. My range patch knife is one of those Green River patterns that is kinda square at the tip. Before every shoot I sharpen it with an 'X' type sharpening steel. It gets sharp but I must use a couple or three 'saws' to cut my patch. Not a big deal. I've been using that knife 40+ years and countless thousands of times loading. Can't bother me too much. In the field I use a medium sized belt/skinner. It takes a couple 'saws' also but, again, not a big deal.

 

[Artificer]

Sorry, I don't know where I got 18th century from, when you want 1800-1840.... In which case, a Barlow type knife might still be closer to what you want.

Excellent points on period Barlow knives!

Since this is out of my area, I wonder if a modern Barlow could be "re-made" to be period correct?

Gus

 

[Black Hand]

The folding knife I carry in my bag. Purchased at Ft. Union a few years ago. Horn scales over brass, 4 1/8" blade and 9 1/2" overall when open

.

 

[Black Hand]

I also carry pre-cut, pre-lubed patches, so I don't need to cut at the muzzle - I find this far more convenient and faster.