BOWIE KNIVES

History of the Bowie Knives.  

Jim Bowie was an adventurer, a commercial, a farmer and an opportunist landowner, who, with his brother Rezin, developed his activities in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

His hability with knives was a legend, and his death was heroical, because he fought until the end against the Mexican soldiers who attacked "El Alamo".

Jim Bowie gave to its name to the knives bowie

James and his brother Rezin had a great debility for good knives. It is proved that both of them adquired numerous exemplaries from the best artesans of knives of that time, some of them conserved till our days as testimony of this history.

About the true form of the original Bowie knife, or at least about the one that Bowie had when defending his life against the troops of General Santana, very few is known, but there are some speculations more or less true and valided. It is true that, far more before his famous duel in 1827, it was common between the inhabitants of those wild and convulsed territories, the use, for defense and combat, of knives with big dimensions, with blades between 9 and 12 inches long, made by manufacturers of instruments for surgery, or by blacksmiths of campaign, depending on the case. 

Spreading the new of the duel, those enormous knives were popularly known as "Knives like the Bowie´s one", sentence that short after will change into a easier name: "Bowie knives"..   

Bowie knives of the famous manufacture Muela.

It doesn´t exist an exact pattern to define the characteristics of a true bowie, but we can affirm that they are great knives, with double defences and with blades of more than 7 inches long (18 cm) and important thickness. They can vary the forms of their blades, but they can be classified into two big groups: those that have a cut or "clip" at its end, and those that end as a lance, although they existed other blades with almost straight sides and curved and ascendant sharper, till they arrive to the sharpened end.

The Bowie knife, that was made in North-American territories, varied from very fine pieces,, made by artesans whose principal job was the creation of instruments for surgery, to very coarse and robust pieces, improvised by simple blacksmiths from the frontier.

For the period between 1820-1830, they were already found in New World territories, representants of Rodgers and Shon, the most important factory of knives in Sheffield (England), trying to find new markets, offering their lines of very fine pocket knives, and other of their goods, like hunting knives of regular dimensions, that were habitually produced in the far Sheffield. When these merchants entered in those new and wild regions that started to spread and to inhabite Westwards, they discovered that there was already there a more interesting and virgin to explode commerce: the inhabitants of those territories wanted knives "like the Bowie´s". 

If you want, you can appreciate our care and varied selection of Bowie knives. 

Bowie knives, Aceros de Hispania

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