All About Pocket Knives

tongueriver wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 6:36 pm Here is an unusual Ruana.

WOW!!!!!

Wish case would make there again

tongueriver wrote: ↑Tue May 20, 2025 6:36 pm Here is an unusual Ruana.

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I've never seen a Ruana like this, but it sure is a beauty.

Eickhoff New York . I love the guard that looks like inverted medical clamp. Nice rare American bowie knife

That's a dandy! And rare is right!

tongueriver wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 1:52 pm That's a dandy! And rare is right!

X2

petekuhn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 1:47 pm Eickhoff New York . I love the guard that looks like inverted medical clamp. Nice rare American bowie knife

Awesome Knife!

Thanks I post them just for the few of us old timers that love the old ones. So this knife company has the same reverse tang stamp like a big samuel jackson whittler that was posted on here in a civil war knife thread long ago. interesting ! Here is a picture of a back side of an eickhoff folding knife and the front. The stamp on the back looks english but the color of the pin looks german anyhow these things are the part of knife collecting that I love

petekuhn wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 1:47 pm Eickhoff New York . I love the guard that looks like inverted medical clamp. Nice rare American bowie knife

What a beautiful knife! It has such a classic look and design, very elegant and deadly at the same time. .... I though the guard looked like a bar bell with weights on it ... of course I didn't have my reading glasses on so take my assessment with a big 'Ol grain of salt....

John sellers has the sword thru an s tang stamp!!!!!!

Just got this one in the mail. I will have to find it in one of there catalogs some day

That is impressive! Almost a short sword.

Reminds me of another knife out of Phila

petekuhn wrote: ↑Mon Oct 06, 2025 8:31 pm Just got this one in the mail. I will have to find it in one of there catalogs some day

Beauty

Wow!

What is a bowie knife? There is a handful of very knowledgeable folk (generally with deep pockets) who have a narrow interpretation of the ‘proper’ definition of a bowie knife, which I shall not address. For me my definition is very loose, and allows those of us in the proletariat to love and enjoy big ol’ badass knives. So... My definition is a fixed blade knife at least ten inches overall, but is NOT a butcher, carver, fillet, chef, santoku (etc.), hunting knife, bolo, machete, short sword, and, ideally should not really be good for anything except just to love. So... Let ‘er rip. It would be fun to hear some of your comments.

There are some very high end bowie knives under ten inches. Michael price made some only 9 inches long.

petekuhn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 07, 2025 3:32 pm There are some very high end bowie knives under ten inches. Michael price made some only 9 inches long.

So what makes them a bowie?

one simple answer to the question is fashion

petekuhn wrote: ↑Tue Oct 07, 2025 5:10 pm one simple answer to the question is fashion

Good answer. How about "taste"? or... "personal preference"?

tongueriver wrote: ↑Tue Oct 07, 2025 3:09 pm What is a bowie knife? [...] My definition is a fixed blade knife at least ten inches overall, but is NOT a butcher, carver, fillet, chef, santoku (etc.), hunting knife, bolo, machete, short sword, and, ideally should not really be good for anything except just to love. [...]

I would ad to your list of knives that are not Bowies Arkansas tooth picks and other daggers with edges the full length of both sides and for me spear point knives. I would remove from your list "hunting knife" and " ideally should not really be good for anything." I field dressed deer with my 1970s Rigid Bowie (the manufacturer's model name). Last week my new Chinese Marbles with a double guard and 7" clip point D2 blade was delivered. To my eye it is more Bowieish than Randal Number Oneish. It worked great for cleaning a salmon, stiff for cutting through the spine behind the gills and heavy enough to whack off the tail. (I use a table spoon to scrape the guts out.) A Buck 119 was my most used knife for back packing for years. The only thing that keeps it off your list is it is so darn usefull. In Hollywood Buck 119s are only weapons so maybe they are Bowies? During the late 1970s while standing on the side walk I watched two Seattle police women stop two young men three blocks from the end of the line of cars waiting to board a ferry headed towards the Olympic National Park. They removed the men's REI Trapper Nelson back packs, the same model I used, from their trunk, searched them, then holding up the Buck 119 they found arrested them. SPD's uniformed ladies must have seen their Buck 119 as a weapon. Should I have asked them if it was a Bowie? If it was not universally associated with more modern times the U.S. Army's MK II fighting knife would be a Bowie. It only lacks flamboyant style. The U.S. Navy's Dahlgren .69 caliber rifled musket's bayonet was undisputably a Bowie.

This is what I like to see; there is a lot of room for interpretation. I have shot, field dressed, boned and otherwise processed maybe something like 200 deer and pronghorns and never even once used a knife as big as a BUCK 119, but I don't see why it wouldn't be fine. I have used folding knives that were about three inches closed to field dress an animal but that was just for the heck of it. Worked fine but a folding knife gets ickier inside than I would prefer. As personal preference for definitions, I would call a BUCK 119 on the cusp between hunting and bowie. In my neck of the woods a guide or outfitter might be rolling his eyes a bit. But a moose or elk is a different story. I think a 119 or even a 120 might have a place for at least a few cuts.