Thread: Sheffield

Originally Posted by Phrank

LOL - was just looking at one earlier, but no way it would make it into Canada, very nice looking Bowie knife:

2 Old Knives Remington Bullet Shield Folding Pocket Knife Wade Butcher Bowie | eBay

Nice !

I actually have been seeing a bunch lately that seem modern .. I have also some files that are labeled Sheffield that are made in China so I wondered about the modern blades ..?!?!?!

This is a Taylors eye witness I picked up at a flea market at the weekend. George Wolstenholme, Joseph Rogers, Taylors are all still making knives but no razors unfortunately.

The list of Sheffield makers often reads razor & pen knife maker.

Here is a John Watts stainless pen knife my mum gave me in the 60's. Tiny 1 & 5/8" blade. Odd build.

One could argue that Sheffield CREATED the large commercial market for bowie type knives in the US. Sheffield was kind of like the cutlery version of Detroit for the English speaking world for much the 1800's.

As we know, there were other "cutlery capitals" in Europe in that era like Solingen, Thiers, Nogent, Gembloux, Toledo, etc. Same with the US in the Northeast and New England. A number of the REALLY desirable early American bowie knives from the period of say the 1827 "Sandbar Duel" or more realistically the early 1830's up though maybe the mid to late 1840's are the fancy "bespoke" knives made by folks like Searles, Bell and Schively. There was another period of very expensive and fancy knife making in San Francisco after the Civil War by firms like Price and Will & Finck , but they were doing their own thing with small to medium sized spear/ drop point blades.

You apparently did see ads offering Bowie knives for sale in the US in 1835 while Jim Bowie was still alive. A fair number of those early fancy American knives were of the old " Mediterranean dirk" straight back pattern with modifications. After that, the majority of ones sold came from Old Blighty. Some might argue that it was the Sheffield knives that really fixed the clip point blade with a double guard pattern that we tend to think of today when we talk about bowie knives.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Sheffield had a lively import market of Bowie type knives to the USA in the old frontier days when the mountain men were exploring the areas west of the Rockies. Extended into the 'old west' and later as well. Pretty collectible knives.

Originally Posted by Bigirishkev

Sheffield is synonymous with steel and good quality steel. When I was young every piece of cutlery in my house was Sheffield, now it's all cheap imports.
Incidentally the Sheffield ice hockey team are called the Steelers and their football/soccer team are nicknamed the blades

But the good one is called the OWLS . . . j/k