Author Toys #3: Civil War Era "Bowie" Knife

I picked this up around twenty years ago for two reasons. First, it looks cool. Two, I was considering using it as part of a cowboy outfit to do historical black powder cowboy shooting with a group known as the NCOWS. Anyhow, I got this relatively cheap (if memory serves) because it hasn’t a maker’s mark or anything else to date it accurately. It is hand forged and still retains what I assume to be an original piece of rawhide still intact. Once in hand, you can tell how well-crafted the knife is just by the way it sits in your hand. Whether you were fighting for your life or chopping through underbrush, the handle style provides an awesome grip for hacking with almost zero chance of it flying from your hand. The balance is also notable. The broad end of the blade takes what is a short weapon and turns it into a cleaver for hacking rather than a draw-cut, a sort of hybrid between ax and knife while retaining the ability to stab. There is no evidence of a maker and so no way to know where it was made, but folks I’ve spoken to suggest it is civil war era, possibly southern… but! No way to know.

It hasn’t made a specific appearance in the Sundering Sagas yet, but it will.