You are right about the quote, and I did not remember that. I checked my Flayderman, and he had that. His comment, more or less was, Black lived close to the newspaper, which implies, Black could have been telling fishing stories to the news writer. And, where was Black from the Sandbar fight (14 years before) and in the five years after Jim Bowie's death?. What Flayderman did not mention, Resin Bowie died Jan 1841. So if Black heard about Resin's death, he knew the principals were not around to validate or contradict any claims he made, true or not. And, really, why should we believe anyone? We all read whoppers every day. Getting an interesting story out, to sell a paper, is more important than fact checking. And how would the Washington Telegraph conduct validation research without a telegraph, a phone, or internet? And why would they care to do it and delay getting the paper out?
If prior to their deaths, if there was written documentation from Jim and Resin that Black made knives for them, then the attribution would be undisputed. But there is not unfortunately.
I do think Jim Bowie must have purchased a number of knives, and the actual knife was not as important to him, as his skills and courage. His survival was not due to a knife, it was due to his determination to win, his judgement, his luck. And I think that is how he would have thought about it. A knife would have been a thing, not an object of veneration. Sure, it would have attributes, size, weight, etc, that he wanted, but it was just a tool to be used, discarded if a better came along. I know many competitors, their firearms are just tools, something they use to win. Others attribute qualities to the gun, that the winner does not.
You will find, Medal Winners attach more importance to their performance, than the medals they received. The outside world, cares more for the medals.
