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Shane- Do you know if anyone here has ever started a thread: Pictures of knives & Cowboy hat's? Or Cowboy's using their knives?
Not that I'm aware of. Have at 'er!!!!
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Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Cowboy knives
- Thread starter veedreen
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Not that I'm aware of. Have at 'er!!!!
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I've never saw working cowboys, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, carrying fixed blades at all. Maybe during hunting season but thats it.
CVamberbonehead
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Well, I don't know for sure. The obvious guess here is a Stockman pocketknife! So that is what I will guess.
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Same. Or if they are carrying a fixed blade, it's usually small compact blade (like
Horsewright
showed above), not a big Bowie-type thing.But I'm still unclear - are we talking about historical (1800's) or working cowboys today? For many today, I bet a Leatherman gets more use than a blade.
Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Howdy guys kinda late to the party. Been away for a few days doing well.................. cowboy stuff and was where there was no service so have been off of BF since Wed. Anyhoo. The defacto cowboy knife in these parts are a folder usually a trapper of some kind, Case, Moore Maker etc. This is very often paired with a small fixed blade of which I have made and sold many thousands to working cowboys, buckaroos, working horsemen etc., all over not only the West but much of the world. I would estimate that 80-90 percent of our sales are to these very people. I know what works for them cause I am them guys or have been. Nowadays I would be called a rancher because while I still do the same work as a working cowboy, I own the cattle and a cowboy works for me. Anyhoo not to get to lost in semantics.
Some of the help while processing at our place;
Castrating is part of the job:
This was at a ranch roping and sold most of these guys over the weekend.
Heck I compete sometimes too:
Sometimes things can get what we call "western" and a knife might come in handy. A small fixed blad ya can get to right now. I'm pretty well mounted here so didn't get wrapped up in that rope but things happen. That soon to be steer was trying to come upon my left side and that could of been bad!
Ya can see my knife right there with its lanyard strings ready to grab if needed:
Looking at a couple of horses at a big ranch in AZ. What was the final price? So many $s and two of your knives. Ya kind of get the idea.
Some of the help while processing at our place;
Castrating is part of the job:
This was at a ranch roping and sold most of these guys over the weekend.
Heck I compete sometimes too:
Sometimes things can get what we call "western" and a knife might come in handy. A small fixed blad ya can get to right now. I'm pretty well mounted here so didn't get wrapped up in that rope but things happen. That soon to be steer was trying to come upon my left side and that could of been bad!
Ya can see my knife right there with its lanyard strings ready to grab if needed:
Looking at a couple of horses at a big ranch in AZ. What was the final price? So many $s and two of your knives. Ya kind of get the idea.
Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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While I've made great in roads with my small fixed blades and ya see a lot of em about:
The trapper still is very popular:
The trapper still is very popular:
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- Nov 22, 2009
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I grew up in "cowboy" country and worked with many. Asking what kind of knife a cowboy used is like asking what kind of socks truck drivers wear. Everybody carried about what could be afforded at the local hardware store. The one universal thing often said was that seldom was a sheath knife actually worn why riding and working. To be "pitched off" a horse was something that happened on a regular basis. A sheath knife worn on the belt could easily get the wearer impaled on his own knife. I never met any that worked on horses all day in the outdoors away from the ranch that did carry a sheath knife. Every cow and sheep hand I knew carried a folder. A local rancher had to kill his own horse because of 2 broken legs and did so with an Uncle Henry stockman. Then again there is no hard fast rule and each man was different.
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A man I work with was a pool rider for 3 summers in the mountains of Colorado. For those that don't know, cattle are driven to the high country in the summers to allow the ranchers to grow hay in their fields for winter feed. Often several ranchers will hire a single man to watch over their herds all summer. This is what Steve did. He lived in a remote 10'x10' rustic cabin all summer, coming into town one day every 2 weeks. A real cowboy for certain. The pay was poor, and he couldn't afford much. His rifle was a Savage single shot 22 long rifle caliber with a broken firing pin that we welded back together. It worked most of the time. His knife was a cheap Chinese made barlow pattern that he bought at the local five and dime. It was so dull you could ride to Texas and back on the blade and never cut yourself.
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Knives are always handy to have, but there's a lot more focus on guns and tools to keep the machinery running. Other than not expensive butchering knives, most of the fixed blades I've seen on a ranch were the ones I sent there as gifts, although recently a rancher I know did order a nice custom blade for himself (so it's possible I'm a good influence). Multi-tools are appreciated, especially the several Swiss Spirit Plus multi-tools I've sent.
The typical folders are small and other than the odd brass bolstered Buck, tend to be small, inexpensive old fashioned style knives. There are also a lot of gas station knives, including the ones issued by tool companies as advertising. On a couple occasions, I got knives from a ranch that were basically business cards, with their ranch name and contact information stamped on them. The Wappen Knife and Carabiner Knife/Multi-Tool I received I treasure more than a lot more expensive knives I own, because of who gave them to me.
The typical folders are small and other than the odd brass bolstered Buck, tend to be small, inexpensive old fashioned style knives. There are also a lot of gas station knives, including the ones issued by tool companies as advertising. On a couple occasions, I got knives from a ranch that were basically business cards, with their ranch name and contact information stamped on them. The Wappen Knife and Carabiner Knife/Multi-Tool I received I treasure more than a lot more expensive knives I own, because of who gave them to me.
marchone
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I was on a late spring Rio Grande Turkey hunt in Texas once. One morning the ranch hands took me out to a hide and left for about two hours. When they came back to get me I already shot a big Tom. With a Leatherman on me I was able to clip a 6" piece of wire from a fence, hang the bird in a tree, and field dress him to cool down. When the cowboys returned they were pretty surprised but had big smiles all around.
RLB0414
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Wonder if he was happier and more content than those of us who buy what we want?
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Sense we are telling stories of ranchers and knives; I will tell one more horror story. A cattle rancher I known and visit yearly in remote southeastern Colorado lives 8 miles from a town so small it has only 2 businesses that are open to the public. His cattle are scattered over a vast distance as forage is poor there. So, Bill has to work and travel distances from his homestead and carry with him what he needs for the days labor. Bill's knife is a CHEAP Buck 110 knockoff from Pakistan IIRC. Always on his belt along with a pair of plyers in a leather pouch, he goes to work. One day I hear some beating and banging and go to investigate. Bill was trying to open a link of rusty chain on a gate so he could insert another link with the few tools he had. He had used a 12" crescent wrench as a hammer to drive the blade of his knife between the links. Still not wide enough to get a new link into the gap, Bill then adjusted the wrench to fit tightly on the spine of the wedged blade and started wrenching the blade back and forth, forcing the gap in the chain to widen. Later that day he asked if he could borrow my pocketknife!!!!
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Typically, every truck has got anywhere from some to a bunch of tools in them and if you're out riding the fence line to do repairs you're carrying a proper pair of wire cutters, but the convenience of a solid multi-tool makes them much appreciated in a place where everyone is trying to keep old things working to avoid buying anything new if they can help it. The Swiss Tool Spirit Plus sets I sent up into Leatherman country got a lot of attention, especially with the nice ratchet set they come with.
NapalmCheese
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Every cowboy I know carries a trapper or a stockman. But then every cowboy I know is as apt to be working cows wearing a ball cap and driving a pickup truck or a quad as wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse.
I have looked at many on line vintage Cowboy pictures.
It is rare to see anything that might look like a knife, or a firearm. You can find vintage pictures at the Library of Congress, Texas Portal, and some locations. Takes work though.
a 1977 video on the popularity of the Buck type lock back, I cannot find a media link, so you will have to view it on the site.
texashistory.unt.edu
You can spend hours on the Portal to Texas History or at the National Cowboy Museum looking at pictures. and not see a knife or gun on a Cowboy, or a man's belt. I do believe they were carrying knives, so I suspect they were carrying folding knives, and one good reason was stated earlier: if you fell on it, it might impale you. I have had sheath knife blades go through a leather sheath with far less force than falling.
A veteran I knew belonged to the pre WW2 Horse Cavalry. He remembered a Trooper who died during saber practice. He fell off his horse (don't know if the horse fell first) and his M1913 Patton saber was attached to his wrist with the sword knot. The trooper lost his grip on the sword as he fell, the thing reversed it self, point under his arm pit. The hilt landed first, the trooper landed on the sword, and the point went through his torso starting at the arm pit. A side to side wound like that, is extremely dangerous, lots of mulitple organs to pierce, heart, lungs, etc, and the trooper died.
I worked for a man who lived in rural Georgia during the 1940's. If you got sick, you either recovered, or you died. To visit a Doctor you had to have money, and you had to hitch up the mules to the wagon, and go to town to see the Doctor. And that would take hours. And this was the pre anti botic era. People died from infections. A stab wound in your side, your leg, from your own sheath knife could turn very serious fast. So could bruises and contusions from falling off a horse.
Something else that I think is realistic, if you are hiring a crew of young men to work as Cowboys, it would be only prudent to control what weapons they carry on the job. Do your really want hot heads going after one another with fighting knives or guns? Might as well ask the man looking for a job, but packing weapons: "Just whom do you plan to kill with that?". These guys worked hard, lived in bunk houses on Ranches, and I am sure, got on each others nerves. If I was the Rancher, I would make sure fighting knives and revolvers were locked up somewhere, and only the Foreman had access to release to them to the owner. A fist fight was good enough to settle a dispute, and no one would get killed. Times were different. If you did not work, you did not get paid. If you did not have money, you did not eat. This gave the employer much authority over his workforce. A folding knife would serve a Cowboy well enough for most purposes, assuming it did not fall out of the pocket. Knives might even have the points broken off, something I recall reading about being done to seamen on commercial sailing ships. Before leaving port with a new crew, they were lined up, and if a sailor had a knife, the point was broken off. Either that, or no work on that ship.
Though this Queen is not Old West vintage, the pattern is
and I am sure, the name Stockman had something to do with what the average user did with the knife. In fact, in old catalogs, large stockman's were also described as a "Cattleman's" knife.
This is a replica of a vintage Schatt knife, it is rather short, but a period pattern that I am sure that Ranchers, or anyone else, would have put into their pocket.
this was a popular period pattern, no reason to assume, it was not carried.
It is rare to see anything that might look like a knife, or a firearm. You can find vintage pictures at the Library of Congress, Texas Portal, and some locations. Takes work though.
a 1977 video on the popularity of the Buck type lock back, I cannot find a media link, so you will have to view it on the site.
[News Clip: Knives]
Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story by reporter Joe Sanchez about the increase in popularity of the folding hunter knife. This story aired at 6:00 P.M.
texashistory.unt.edu
You can spend hours on the Portal to Texas History or at the National Cowboy Museum looking at pictures. and not see a knife or gun on a Cowboy, or a man's belt. I do believe they were carrying knives, so I suspect they were carrying folding knives, and one good reason was stated earlier: if you fell on it, it might impale you. I have had sheath knife blades go through a leather sheath with far less force than falling.
A veteran I knew belonged to the pre WW2 Horse Cavalry. He remembered a Trooper who died during saber practice. He fell off his horse (don't know if the horse fell first) and his M1913 Patton saber was attached to his wrist with the sword knot. The trooper lost his grip on the sword as he fell, the thing reversed it self, point under his arm pit. The hilt landed first, the trooper landed on the sword, and the point went through his torso starting at the arm pit. A side to side wound like that, is extremely dangerous, lots of mulitple organs to pierce, heart, lungs, etc, and the trooper died.
I worked for a man who lived in rural Georgia during the 1940's. If you got sick, you either recovered, or you died. To visit a Doctor you had to have money, and you had to hitch up the mules to the wagon, and go to town to see the Doctor. And that would take hours. And this was the pre anti botic era. People died from infections. A stab wound in your side, your leg, from your own sheath knife could turn very serious fast. So could bruises and contusions from falling off a horse.
Something else that I think is realistic, if you are hiring a crew of young men to work as Cowboys, it would be only prudent to control what weapons they carry on the job. Do your really want hot heads going after one another with fighting knives or guns? Might as well ask the man looking for a job, but packing weapons: "Just whom do you plan to kill with that?". These guys worked hard, lived in bunk houses on Ranches, and I am sure, got on each others nerves. If I was the Rancher, I would make sure fighting knives and revolvers were locked up somewhere, and only the Foreman had access to release to them to the owner. A fist fight was good enough to settle a dispute, and no one would get killed. Times were different. If you did not work, you did not get paid. If you did not have money, you did not eat. This gave the employer much authority over his workforce. A folding knife would serve a Cowboy well enough for most purposes, assuming it did not fall out of the pocket. Knives might even have the points broken off, something I recall reading about being done to seamen on commercial sailing ships. Before leaving port with a new crew, they were lined up, and if a sailor had a knife, the point was broken off. Either that, or no work on that ship.
Though this Queen is not Old West vintage, the pattern is
and I am sure, the name Stockman had something to do with what the average user did with the knife. In fact, in old catalogs, large stockman's were also described as a "Cattleman's" knife.
This is a replica of a vintage Schatt knife, it is rather short, but a period pattern that I am sure that Ranchers, or anyone else, would have put into their pocket.
this was a popular period pattern, no reason to assume, it was not carried.
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