What is a Bowie?

G

gregj62

Joined
Oct 4, 1998
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Ok what is a Bowie, I know that sounds stupid but the more I look what people call bowies, The more I think a bowie is any knife somebody wants to call a bowie.

Ther are even bowie, That what the maker call them that has a spear point, Like a blunt dagger. It didn't even have a clip point.

That is just one example there are 100's of them that are not even close to what I think a bowie is

So what do you all call a bowie?
 
A bowie is the type of knife which was desined by a man named Bowie in the 19th century. It was considered the ideal knife and became extremely popular. It has evolved, but a traditional bowie looks like a CS Trailmaster or Recon Scout.

Keep your knives sharp -
BM
 
That's what I call a Bowie but there is an afull lots of blades out there that don't look like that and are still call a Bowie.


 
This seems to be a very confusing subject matter. If you take a look at the Knives 'XX books by Ken Warner, you'll find a lot of pictures of bowies and you'll end up just as confused as I am. You'll see one and say to yourself, "that's a bowie" and, in the same page, you'll see another picture in the bowie section and ask, "that's a bowie?"
-Greg
 
Greg
The spear point blade bowie you saw is called the Rio Grande Camp Knife. It was also the type of Knife that John Wilkes Booth had in his posession when caught.B.Moran also makes a similar model.
Bob
 
The newspaper account of the Sandbar Fight (a formal duel that got out of hand) told of James Bowie slicing and dicing the other guy with "that big butcher knife he always carries." A Bowie knife doesn't have to have the sharp-edge or false-edge clip point, but can be any large knife suitable for both wilful damage and work. A "Mediteranean" or "Searles" Bowie knife looks a lot like a big French chef's knife.

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com

 
This is a good question. Since Bowie knives are illegal in Texas (imagine the blasphemy), I wonder what the LEGAL definition is.

Jack
 
Raymond Thorpe, in his book, "The Bowie Knife", says that Jim Bowie carried a knife that his brother had given him at the Sandbar Fight and that it broke. He then went to James Black, a knifesmith in Arkansas, with a wooden model of what he wanted. Black made him a knife like the model and then made one that he had modified from the model. Bowie chose the modified one, and that is supposed to be the original Bowie Knife, at least according to Thorpe. Randall Knives makes a "Raymond Thorpe Bowie" and it is a very large, clip-pointed knife with a sharpened false edge. Thorpe says that the original knife had a brass strip on the back edge to catch an opponnent's blade.
 
As a PS, Bowie Knives were made illegal in many states back in the 1800s as they were then thought to be the weapon that would end civilization as they knew it. Does this sound familiar?
 
Texas is one of those states with a Bowie knife law, as well as a dirk/dagger law, and an illegal knife law (blade>5.5"). I imagine that it is mainly Southern states w/ anti-Bowie laws. Does anyone know of others besides TX?
 
Texas is one of those states with a Bowie knife law, as well as a dirk/dagger law, and an illegal knife law (blade>5.5"). I imagine that it is mainly Southern states w/ anti-Bowie laws. Does anyone know of others besides TX?
 
I beleive that you are right, Prichard, as I seem to remember that it is the Southern states that outlawed them. But I do know that they are illegal in Maryland(!) and I believe in Arkansas. I do not know about my home commonwealth, Virginia.
 
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