Why Bowie gets all the love and not Hudson Bay

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Mar 27, 2015
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Title says it all. Ive been reading about hudson bay knfe and i really think it deserves to be an A list star. It was around alot longer and used by more hardmen than 'Bowie' knives yet gets little press. Just sayin.
 
I only have Condor made hudson bay, but I love the pattern absolutely! Very versatile knife, and I like the looks too.
 
Actually you could say that the hudson bay is a bowie since what is thought of as the bowie today really is not, so anything is really a bowie. confusing right ;)
 
Actually you could say that the hudson bay is a bowie since what is thought of as the bowie today really is not, so anything is really a bowie. confusing right ;)

That's it! From now on I'm referring to my Kershaw Leek as a Bowie!!!:D
 
Title says it all. Ive been reading about hudson bay knfe and i really think it deserves to be an A list star. It was around alot longer and used by more hardmen than 'Bowie' knives yet gets little press. Just sayin.

Could not agree more. Really your large choppers now are really MUCH more Hudson Bay variants that Bowie variants. Hudson Bay style knives go just as far back, and were purpose built and used exactly for what people use their large/camp/chopper knives for today.

Bowies are fighters, not camp knives.

Hudson Bays are camp knives, not fighters.

Great post.
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Patterns die, and come back. That's the nature of the cutlery biz. The Hudson Bay was a dead pattern for most of the 20th century, with only one British maker making a similar knife. As a far as why it died out so many years ago? I'd bet it was the axe that killed it, camp knives are a relatively recent rediscovery in the cutlery business, they died out more or less by the 20th century, and weren't really repopularized till the late 70's. To be fair, Bowie type knives were also a tiny part of the trade till recently too.

If you want to see the pattern come back, get companies into it. :cough:Cold Steel:cough:.
 
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If you want to see the pattern come back, get companies into it. :cough:Cold Steel:cough:.

In the meantime I guess we will have to do with (cough) Condor and Bark River? :D

Bark River Hudson Bay II
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Here with the 7 1/4" blade BR Rogue,for size reference.

Regards
Mikael
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Could not agree more. Really your large choppers now are really MUCH more Hudson Bay variants that Bowie variants. Hudson Bay style knives go just as far back, and were purpose built and used exactly for what people use their large/camp/chopper knives for today.

Bowies are fighters, not camp knives.

Hudson Bays are camp knives, not fighters.

Great post.
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But, but, but, wasn't the original Sandbar fight Bowie a camp knife, that was used for a fight? So if the hudson is a camp knife and we know that bowie used a camp knife in a fight and we call it a bowie, isn't the hudson a bowie? ;)
 
But, but, but, wasn't the original Sandbar fight Bowie a camp knife, that was used for a fight? So if the hudson is a camp knife and we know that bowie used a camp knife in a fight and we call it a bowie, isn't the hudson a bowie? ;)

Don't you start, Mr SmartyPants. :D
 
It's the frontier mythos. Social sensibilities no doubt killed the big knife market as cities began to spring up. Hudson Bay knives were well designed fur trade tools which never appealed much to the frontier glamour of the settlers in this country. I'd guess not so many of the bigger Hudson Bay Co. knives were sold into this market.

The first Bowies were probably just the biggest knife in the kitchen or on the homestead. Someone looked at it and said, "I bet this will come in real handy", So they stuck it in their belt. Rezin Bowie seems to be the guy that had his wheels turning because of his brother's doings and started playing around with adding a guard to a butcher knife. If someone else did it first he didn't have a good press secretary like Bowie did. I bet Jim Bowie wasn't as obsessed with the design side as his brother was. He was just the better actor with the final product. In any case, God bless these guys for giving us such a great legend.
 
Bowies get love due to the mystique and the cool factor, which the Hudson Bay doesn't have.

In the modern world, carrying around a big honkin knife in the woods are at "camp" is a PITA, that's why Hudson Bay knives are not popular anymore. I carried a big bowie when camping as a boy and it was not practical.
 
for all the older ones on this forum cold steel made some frontier type knives with carbon v steel in california one was a hudson bay one was a red river they had leather pouch sheaths had one should have kept it. havent we all done that with a knife we owned lol
 
The hudson bay is a chopper but it has a clip and a point so i believe even though no guard the choil stops hand from getting cut so it can be used for self defence. I bet the sandbar knife looked alot more like a hudson bay then a bowie style
 
The hudson bay is a chopper but it has a clip and a point so i believe even though no guard the choil stops hand from getting cut so it can be used for self defence. I bet the sandbar knife looked alot more like a hudson bay then a bowie style

Nope.
 
The hudson bay knife has a much more distinctive look to it, almost like a large nesmuk or something. They are cool looking knives. I have the condor version.
 
In the modern world, carrying around a big honkin knife in the woods are at "camp" is a PITA, that's why Hudson Bay knives are not popular anymore. I carried a big bowie when camping as a boy and it was not practical.

Ah, you typed it wrong.
You obviously meant to say that "In the modern world, a big honkin knife comes in very handy in the woods and at camp, and that's why so many people love them. I carried a big knife when camping as a boy, but was not yet large enough to use it to its full potential."

Damned typos. :D
 
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