Didnt know if anyone else had seen this yet, stopped me in my tracks when I saw it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4070&item=6506128065&rd=1

God Bless
Mike

Well worth the visit to ebay!

it's a good "read", but I'm skeptical about it. Not that I could or would shell out 25k !

Well I agree with not being able to shell out 25K myself, but it got me to thinking, "IF" it were of the same maker as "Bowie #1" what would the worth be??? Ive seen Will & Finks go for 20K and up to collectors, and Heaven forbid pricing a Michael Price, or a Searlls !
Make ya wanna go hmmmmmmmmmmmm :)

God Bless
Mike

This is its second time being listed. I have been watching it. The first time it was listed for 27,000 with no bids. Makes ya wonder, I have seen it pictured before. I'll have to compare pics.

first listing (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=2288844063&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT)

Here is a pic of "Bowie no. 1" with the "1830's" inset to compare.
http://us.f2.yahoofs.com/users/41b8feaazfb882e44/4c75/__sr_/fe7a.jpg?phfF58BBVbdXbf.l
(click4pic) (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tattooroc4q2/detail?.dir=4c75&.dnm=fe7a.jpg&.src=ph)

Altho widely accepted as authentic and truly made by James Black, Bowie no.1's origin is still the most speculated upon. One good legend surmised and held up as proof by no. 1 is that knife fighters of yor held their bowies with the clip facing down. The spine was then used as a blade breaker, the clip would extend in to clip off a finger, thumb, or slash a wrist. When and if the knife was plunged into the abdomin, it could be hauled up on to disembowel the opponent. The "proof" of this is held in the fact that the "bowie No. 1" is carved upside down in the escutchen. (added) Also the unusual angle of No.1's blade. (looks like the natural course of sharpening to me)

Legend, speculation, comparasons, thats all we have to go on for unmarked bowies. The seller makes no claims other than the bowie was made in the 1830's. Great presentation by the seller by the way. What could be the reason for the auction to get this far without a rich collector snatching it up? Is it a fake? Is the price too high?

Altho bowie no. 1's history is sketchy, the other famous Black/Bowie mentioned in the listing is the Carrigan Bowie. The Carrigan's place in history is assured by a letter provenance written by Steve Carrigan in 1936.
http://www.arkansashistory.com/images/gallery/ham_gal_knife06.jpg

Authentic or not (and it does look authentic to me but I'm no expert) it's a nice looking, well designed knife. I've always felt this was one of the more functional Bowie designs, and appears at least one of the owners used it extensively. Really nice, thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Edited to add: the lack of a soldered-on silver riccasso on the ebay piece leads me to wonder if the knife is by the same maker as the others, or, if by the same maker, made at an earlier or later date.

Well, as I have long suspected. I need a trustee to handle what little money I have left. :D
I asked Bernard Levine to comment on this knife. Swallow your coffe before you read his response. Gotta love his candor.
Lavine forum (http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=568784&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)

IMHO, trying to identify a knife like this must be nearly impossible. For someone to be an expert, they have to know exactly what the originals look like, and all the thousands of tricks used by fakers. Even if I won the Lotto, I don't think I could ever be convinced that a knife like this was real and worth that kind of cash.

Thanks, Hammerdownow for getting the "second opinion"! Makes for some interesting reading, doesn't it!

Having said all that, it is still a pretty nice looking knife.

Roc
Thanks for asking The Guru, its a sad day that folks would stoop to such a low, (if thats the case here) really bring home the phrase "let the buyer beware"!

Intresting take on the butcher knife too!!

God Bless
Mike

Turns out the knife has been kicking around for quite awhile, I knew I had seen it before. My system crashes so much I lose a lot of research. According to a sourse I trust, it was made by a well known, among those in the know, faker. Supposedly he is very good at what he does, so don't feel bad about being fooled by the hype. Altho Mr. Levine sees thru these things like looking thu a window, that kind of expertice only comes from handling thousands of pieces. Average Joe's like us don't get to do that. That is another wonderful thing about the internet. instead of information being passed around thu snail mail and one on one telephone calls, we can "Knifenetwork" and reach thousands in a single paragraph.

If this knife is a fake, as is suggested..I would sure like to see some of the 'fakers' other knives :)

I would like to see some also. I will try to scare some up. Over on Levin is an ongoing thread about ebay fakes and ethics. We have all heard the term. "Hate the game, not the player" Some people lament the presents of fakes in the antique knife market, others revel in the detective work it takes to judge the real from the contrived. Some stand on a soap box and shout ;"play fair"!!
Like it or not it is a game. like any other game, you choose whether or not to play. You cannot change the rules, just cuz you don't like them. If they could have been changed they would have been,,,,,long ago. Everyone feels sheepish when the wool has been pulled over his eyes. I have been there. I hold no ill will, and have only my own ignorance and greed to blaim. Our own greed is the root of the evil. We feel we are getting something for nothing, we are making a big score, we are going to make a profit from someone elses perseived ignorance and end up with a bag of magic beans. heck yeah you are mad as all get out, you been ripped off, taken for a fool whose money and him has been recently parted. But lay the blaim where it belongs. upon our own greed. to think that others will not be waiting to take advantage of that human frailty is just more ignorance. hate the game, but not the player.
What other forces besides greed could induce a maker to fabricate a hoax? Like unto the crop circle kids, vanity could be another reason. To fool many with your skill and pump up the ego could be a tempation to some.
What better compliment for a reproductionist, or period maker, than for some one to think your knife is the genuine article. the best compliment I ever had was, "Wow, that thing looks like it is a hundred years old" "Thankyou, that is what I was shooting for. Check the makers mark" Sometimes you let them hold it and believe it for a minute or so, or let them find the mark on their own. I was advised long ago to mark well and deep to avoid confusion in the future.

From what I understand, Mr. golden geetar is a relative new commer to antique knives that fell into it by getting a good deal on a large estate sale collection. This next part is all supposition to make a point if I ever get there, so bear with me. I don't know if this knife was part of it, or he purchased it, or traded some of the prior knives from said purchase for it. What I can surmize is that he got burned, and not just a cigarette ash fell off and landed for a second on your arm burned, but a picked up a black hot piece of steel kinda burn. The guy that sold it to him got burned, and the guy before that, so what in the world is he supposed to do? You and I being far removed from the reality and severity of the situation can easily say, destroy it, cut your losses, lick your wounds, time will heal you. It would take a lot of lickin to heal a ten or 20 thousand dollar wound. I don't know what I would do. scary to think about it. Another forumite said he hopes never to do business with me for even posing such a question. I have alway licked my little couple hundred dollar wounds and have little doubt of my own honesty.

Remember in school they posed such a question. "Say you have a a wife and five kids at home. they are dieing of a desease that will kill them by morning. you are broke, no hospital or doctors will help. The pharmacy is closed, but there is medicine there and if they take it they will live, if not they will die" "would you break in and take the medicine to save your loved ones, or sit at home and watch them die?"

Happens all the time, and not just with antiques. I worked for an oil company years ago that bought another company. After the dust settled they found out that most of the oil properties they bought were bogus. They had been bought and sold and repackaged and resold so many times that no one could even find some of them! In another case, they bought a pipeline company, spent a fortune fixing it up, then sold it at a great loss. I was involved in reviewing records before the sale and I stumbled across the report of the guys who looked at it before purchase. Their review said not to buy it under any circumstances. But some bigshot just had to have it, so they bought it anyway. A couple months after the company sold it back to its original owner, it was sold again!

Let the buyer beware!

Hmmm...maybe this is the same guy as well:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=4070&item=6507120602&rd=1

Or this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36037&item=6506909427&rd=1

I kinda wonder about anything being sold on ebay as an antique! There seems to be lots out there. Surly some are "real" and woth the prices.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=716&item=3953343056&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=7271&item=6506944006&rd=1


Wait...we have a winner, and this one's in my price range :p .
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=36037&item=6507103233&rd=1

:eek: now that one is funny.a lot like i see on powder horns ,trade silver ,and any number of other "relics". too bad the guy wasn't smart enough to age the date after he changed it from 1959 to 1859. you can find a bunch of "1670" hudson bay tokens for the right price also.

Those are funny and laughable. Why didn't I think of getting a psycic reading on a knife? (obviously ground to a bowie clip from another knife and rehandled by an amature) not real.
I would not trust the Backficsh either. Fighers like this are often cutdown swords that are pieced together from a pile of parts. Ask an expert. The exception is the Patton Saber Knife, which was odered to be made by Gen . George Patton from the calvery swords that were too long to be practical, when they switched from horses, to jeeps and tanks during WWI.

....and the con"nut"icut yankee seems to be target marketing, with the phrase"Still good for the purpose it was made for" (iffin you know any yankees that need a little killin') Not some fancy english style blade, but made by a downhome blacksmith made like the English would make them. WTF? Could be a comedy if it was not such a tragedy. I wonder how hard it was to buff Whitetail cutlery off that blade? The Paci/china dyed cowbone is a dead giveaway.

They are funny when they are obviously transparent. Not so funny when they are written in a believeable way.

Im with you Roc, if it wernt for folks getting taken, it would be laughable, but as the saying says let the buyer beware! It always has amazed me how somthing good (ebay) can be so skewed for folks willing to make a dishonest buck!

Oh well, mabe I could dig thru my scrap bucket and find some "artifacts" !!!

God Bless
Mike

Great thread - Thanks! The realm of knife fakery produces much discouragement - in me and in lots of folks. I remember how outraged I was upon identifying a Scagel fake on eBay some months back (Roc, you remember). I'm also amazed (repeatedly) at how much I 'want to believe' that something exciting, like this 'bowie' is the real deal. Alas, the exploitation of human nature is an age-old game.

With regard to antique Bowies, I've got all the books (and have read them), became a life member of the American Bowie Knife Assoc., attended (so far) one really good show, met some of the key players, formed positive relationships with two widely respected and trusted experts - all in hopes of one day placing one of these historic knives in my collection.

I finally decided to put the whole dream on hold because with so many of these knives you just can't be certain. I remember what I learned about avalanches during my mountaineering years - and it's relevant in this area as well. 1) There are a lot of dead 'experts' out there, who died believing they could manage the risks using 'knowledge and experience.' 2) The only way for certain to avoid an avalanche it to stay well out of avalanche terrain. Assessing risk increases risk. You just can't go there and if you do you're immediately into a risk vs stakes game where the wish to believe you're safe begins a cascade of small errors in judgement leading to a bad outcome.

Sounds fatalistic and negative but what's nice is that, any more, I don't worry about avalanches or fake Bowie knives - because I just don't go there. The mental energy I've saved is now well spent just 'having fun' in the knife world.

These are just my thoughts - maybe I'm wrong or too risk averse. But I can sleep at night, and that's worth a lot to me!
BT