If you read the article, the resemblance is superficial. The handle is made of softer iron. Then there is the issue that they are not HC/PC for our periods of interest. Furthermore, use on one part of the globe in no way indicates universal use or use elsewhere.
Those are not striker knives.
Think the other members took care of this one.
The "striker knife" thing was incidental, as the original poster makes pretty clear in his last post. The overall design, which is what people were objecting to, pre-dates 1970. I don't see anywhere anyone making a distinction between the overall form of the knife (notably, shape of the handle) and the use of said handle as a firestriker, until AFTER I posted that link, and that is a fairly transparent attempt to save face which I thought I was being very nice by not calling out at the time.
Put another way, are y'all willing to formally admit that had the knife been made of period iron and steel it would be PC? If not, why not? (Also, is this sudden interest in the carbon content of knife steel applicable to other repro knives? Do we know consider knives made of o-1 and W-1/2 to be "untraditional?" If not, why not?) Are you objecting to the object, or the suggestion that the object could be used in a particular way?
Oh, and Black Hand? If you scroll down a bit you will notice a forum devoted to reenacting events as far back as AD 950, and I don't see anything limiting this forum to North America (And even if it is written somewhere, leaving aside the issue of the Vinland colony, the dates sort of preclude that limitation anyway...) In any case, there is no rule written in the laws of God, Nature, or Man that says one cannot use two items from different period at the same time. That is a reenacting
convention being imposed on the rest of us under the guise of "historical authenticity."
On a more general note the community at large: History is defined in large part as the study of
change over time. This is not a minor thing - it is one of the things that makes History a distinct discipline. There is very little overlap between History as an academic discipline and reenacting. Even hard-core reenacting is either trying to
feel for a moment that you have gotten inside someone else head by wearing their clothing and mimicking their actions. At the core it is about a subjective experience, not the study of history. Nothing wrong with that, but let us at least be honest with ourselves and with others about what we are trying to accomplish here...
