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English vs French scalping knives

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Scalping knives, scalping knives, immediately the big words... A Frenchman would never scalp someone, never, they are so gentle...
I have never heard anyone talking about this kind of jokes made on the head of others by French...... or just a little and accidentally.....
As for the Englishmen, I don't know.........

:D :D
Good day to you all. ;)

I'm reminded of the scene from "Braveheart" where the French lady in waiting says to the wife of Prince Edward; "the problem with Englishmen is that they dont know what their tongues are for" !
 
As I understand it, there were a lot of different "players" in the Sheffield trade. For example Nowill. The descendants of that firm absolutely confirm they made knives for the fur trade but if you search the fur trade inventory lists- I haven't seen that name. I think(always dangerous to think) that what might have happened was that a jobber got a huge order. Hiram Cutler was a jobber as I understand it- he didn't actually make knives. These jobbers would then farm out parts of a huge contract to various firms in Sheffield. So, perhaps Nowill takes 1,000 knives and this Turner does the same. The blade smiths had a collection of stamp marks from the major firms, so these knives are all stamped with the Hiram Cutler mark. I have no way of knowing but it might explain why there are folks in Sheffield adamant about certain firms supplying the trade while on our side of the pond- the inventory lists don't mention such firms. I am not sure- just wondering.
 
Just one more knife to show...

I think this one is English. It is shown in the online collections of the McCord Museum in Canada as Item No. M18192.1:

McCord Museum 1.1.jpg


The handle looks like stag or jigged bone to me, but is identified as wood (bois) on the website. This one may be from a later date (1875-1885) than would be of interest to most of the folks here, but the style of the knife had not changed much. The McCord website shows both sides of the knife, as well as images of the leather sheath studded with brass tacks, but I can only get this one view to load.

Notchy Bob
 
This old English scalper has seen some use, but I think there is enough of it left to give us some information:

English Scalper 11 in..jpg


This is in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, listed as a Sheffield Trade Knife. You can see the three iron pins and the "Cross F" imprint on the blade. The "Cross L" knives may be better known, but the letter "F" is clearly visible on this blade. The description says it is 11" long, and by measuring the image and calculating proportions, we have about a six and one half inch blade and a four and one half inch handle. While a lot of metal has been lost from use and repeated sharpening, you can still see the sweep of the back of the blade, the width of the handle relative to the width of the blade, and the shape of the choil. If you go the this page, you'll be able to enlarge the image for a better look.

Here is the complete description:

"A knife made in Sheffield, England, and traded by British fur companies in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The slightly curved blade is stamped with a Maltese cross over an "F" and has a single cutting edge. The scales are wood secured to the half tang by three iron pins. Each scale is triangular in cross section producing a hilt that is diamond shaped in cross section. The pommel is abrupt and flat. The hilt expands slightly from front to back. Although mass produced, few have survived."

Interestingly, they describe a half tang and scales. This is how the old-time butcher knives were hafted, but the scalpers usually had a half tang with a single block of wood for the handle, with a slot cut in for the tang. If the description is accurate, the construction of this knife is unusual, although its overall appearance is very typical of common trade scalpers.

MHS website shows a lot of knives of all types and ages in the collections, although this is the only scalper I've found thus far. No French knives yet, but there are quite a few pages through which to scroll. They have a lot of other artifacts you can browse with their search function.... Powder horns, fire steels, muskets... Its easy to get distracted.

Notchy Bob
 
Were it not for the position of wire wrap placement at the rear of the pins, I would believe it to be a mistaken description of the grip. But, also it could possibly be a replacement considering the wear on the blade, and the lower than normal pin position. English had a low pin placement in the tangs, but the oversized grips would show them at or near a centered row. To me, the choil seems very short as if it was worn away along with the rest of the blade, and that could explain the appearance of the low pins, especially if the grip was worn away also, or trimmed on purpose as the blade wore. The French made some two piece grips, but they added an extra pin near the butt to prevent shear pressure damage. Interesting knife! One other thing. Maybe just the photo or lighting, but the pins appear to be brass or copper.
 
Wick, thanks for the comments. I also questioned the accuracy of the description. It seems that if the knife was hafted with two scales, they would need a pin or two nearer the butt, as was done with butcher knives. I suppose it may be possible that the original handle was in one piece but split, giving the illusion of two scales. That might explain the wire wrapping.

I also noted the low position of the pins, but wasn't sure what to make of it.

I wish they would have given us a few more photos, showing alternate perspectives, but that one is all we have. It is informative, though.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
 
Great info here. Great looking knifes Runewolf!!! Did I miss what you used to seal the handle? Or is the wood natural oil enough? Sorry I’m a little late to the party.
It seemes I have been working to hard!!! I’ve been hand sanding my blades up to 1500. I have just been dipping them in viniger to create a pátina. Will LMF Browning work to create the aged look? I know quite a few different woods were used as handle materia. Any known uses of Osage Orange?
 
Osage Orange would be very unlikely except as a replacement grip, Woods would be Euro, or exotic SA and African . Euro Beech and Boxwood were common.
 
Thanks LRB,
Any specific SA or African hardwoods? I have some padauk, bubinga, Bolivian rosewood and Bolivian lignum vitea on hand?
 
Carl Russell discussed an old scalper, which I believe was marked FURNIS, and reported some scrapings from the wood handle were sent to a lab for analysis. The results indicated East Indian rosewood. This was in Firearms, Traps, and Tools of the Mountain Men.

You sometimes see references to camwood and barrwood for trade knife handles, but I think people sometimes toss these terms around without really knowing what they are. The "common" names for tropical hardwoods sometimes change over time. I researched this some time back, and concluded that these were very similar to padauk, and in fact @Runewolf used padauk for the handle on an outstanding scalper he made for me not long ago, and I could not be better pleased with this knife. In any event, I have been unable to find a source for camwood or barrwood.

There are references to "red handled scalpers" and I just recently saw the term "redwood scalper," although for the life of me, I can't remember where it was. However, I have no doubt this meant "red-colored wood," and not California redwood. I agree with @LRB 's assertion that European beech or African or South American hardwoods would have been most common, although I would add East Indian rosewood to the list. Wick also reports the use of boxwood for scalper handles. I would trust his research. I haven't yet found boxwood specifically mentioned for scalping knives, but I have seen it referenced for butcher knife handles. I have two antique butcher knives, one British and one German, which I believe are hafted with boxwood. All of the other dozen or so old butcher knives that I have are hafted with beech.

"Boxwood" is another name that gets confusing. I'm pretty sure the old-time Sheffield cutlers would have used true boxwood, Bruxus sempervirens. This stuff is impossible to get now. However, there are at least two other woods which are marketed as boxwood now. Taxonomically, they are not related to true boxwood, but the wood of all three species is very similar in every way. The one you are most likely to find is marketed as Castello boxwood. I don't have any of it, but I would like to get some and would not hesitate to use it for hafting a copy of a historic knife.

Old knife catalogs often list knives with "cocoa" handles, meaning cocobolo. However, I don't think I've seen this wood specifically associated with scalping knives. I've gotten the impression that butcher knives were hafted with a greater variety of woods than scalpers. Edwin Thompson Denig, who was the bourgeois at Fort Union in what is now North Dakota, specifically mentioned "brazilwood" and logwood as the woods typically used in hafting the butcher knives being traded out of his post. In looking through James Hanson's Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook, we find a couple of butchers hafted with walnut and one with ash, but I believe these were probably from much later in the 19th century.

"Brazilwood" (pronounced "brazzlewood" back in the day) and logwood were much in demand for making red dye. Brazilwood is now better known as pernambuco, and it is the very best wood for making violin bows. It is also a threatened species now, and I don't think it is being exported. However, there is a wood from Mexico called "chakte viga," or "Mexican pernambuco," which is in the same genus and is remarkably similar to the Brazilian wood, it is relatively inexpensive and not hard to find. I have used it for knife handles, and it works great. It may be very slightly lighter in color than true pernambuco, but the difference is minimal. It finishes out to a beautiful deep, brownish red with just a very small amount of linseed oil rubbed in

There is a persistent rumor that butcher and scalping knife blades were sold from the trading posts to be hafted by the end-users. I have not found anything in the primary source materials I have read to corroborate this. Some crooked knives and snow knives, as well as fur trade-era bayonets and "dags," were sold as bare blades, but as far as I know butcher knives and scalpers were only sold as completed knives. The ones you see with "country made" handles were probably re-hafted after the original handle broke, split, or burned.

There is a very simple handmade belt knife, shown in American Primitive Knives, which has a beautiful curly maple handle. However, I have never seen or heard of an original trade knife, scalper or butcher, with an original handle of maple.

So, for hafting a fur-trade era scalping knife, East Indian rosewood is a very "safe" choice... It is widely available and affordable, it is being grown commercially, and laboratory analysis showed it was used for hafting a very typical original. In my opinion, padauk would also be a very good choice in that it is similar to and may even be "camwood," which is often mentioned as scalping knife handle material, but I have never found camwood for sale. Wick tells us boxwood and beech were used for scalping knife handles. Castello boxwood should be a good substitute for the European or Persian boxwood used originally.

We know pernambuco, ebony, and cocobolo were used for hafting some of the cutlery back then, but it might be a stretch to use one of these on a scalper. Likewise, walnut and ash were documented by James Hanson on a few old butcher knives, but I've never heard of these being used on scalpers. I would not use maple, hickory, locust or Osage on a trade knife, unless you can come up with a story about re-hafting your blade. I don't see any reason not to use any of these for a handmade knife from an American blacksmith, though.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob
 
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On the Appalachian frontier ,traders carried knives of many descriptions into the Indian country . Some government made in Europe, the rest made by blacksmiths here in America. The ones made locally were patterned after the needs of hunters. The knives must have been an interesting mix of designs . Indian reids , and reprisal raids by frontier militia , must have mixed the available plunder knives so that there were many kinds of knives on the frontier.
 
I do not believe very many American blacksmiths made trade type knives for Appalachian traders, or very many knives of any kind beyond special orders. They would have had to compete with cheap imports which were imported in the tens of thousands. The English had a bit of a corner on the market until around the 1830's, with the French, Dutch and some others close behind.
 
I would not use maple, hickory, locust or Osage on a trade knife, unless you can come up with a story about re-hafting your blade. I don't see any reason not to use any of these for a handmade knife from an American blacksmith, though.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob

I do have a blade that is in the English scalper style and it was made by a contemporary "American" blacksmith that I need to haft, I do not have any of the exotics that have been mentioned in this thread. Certainly a poplar or typical soft wood would not be appropriate. I do have some Elk Antler, Walnut, Osage and Locust. Looks like my story is, that I broke the handle breaking down a buffalo in 27' and I just happen to have access to one of those materials for the repair.

That's my story and I am sticking to it! 🤣 ;)

RM
 
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I really like that Furniss scalper Wick posted. Why not just photocopy to full size and cut out and use as a pattern for an exact copy?
 
I really like that Furniss scalper Wick posted. Why not just photocopy to full size and cut out and use as a pattern for an exact copy?
Witch one?
Still trying to figure out peoples true handles, who is Wick?
 
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