Spanish knives

[isaac]

I am looking.for images of original fur trade era knives of Spanish/Mexican origin. Taos type stuff. Belduques, cuchillos, simple trade knives... I am interested in all of it.

Gracias,

IW

[Chuck Burrows]

Mexican made Bowie - circa 1840's


Three sketches from the Museum of the Fur Trade's' "Fur Trade Cutlery Sketchbook"


Ron Laclair at Shrew Bows offers a nice copy of this one






Mexican dagger - circa 1850's


Spanish Navaja folder


The next five are from Jim Gordon's museum in Glorieta, NM








This one came out of SW Neuevo Mexico










Bench copy of an original by maker Joe Delaronde


A poor scan of my own "poor boy" Belduque - bone grip with rawhide wrap - blade is 7 3/4"

[isaac]

AWESOME! Thanks, Chuck! I knew you would have some to share!

[Pare]

Ditto! Great information and pictures, Chuck.

Pare-

[isaac]

What are all your thoughts on this knife? It is from Ryan Gale's book on the fur trade and is labelled as a HBC roach belly. To me, this looks nothing like any of the HBC roach bellies I have seen but does look rather Spanish. .?

[Chuck Burrows]

Yes it does look more Spanish than French to my eye as well, but then there is a similarity to many Mediterranean knives. On the other hand Rod L did post a portion of an AFCo UMO trade list a while back that included Spanish dirk knives (dirk in the early 1800's can be applied to various styles knives and not just those looking like a Scots Hieland dirk)on it and this may be one of those perhaps?
here's the link to that list rockymtncollege.proboards.com/thread/556/umo-inventory-fun

[Chuck Burrows]

Also note that Spanish Belduques are generally big knives with 10-14" blades and are also generally very thick at the sping just forward of the grip - often 3/8" thick. They are descendants of the Spanish fighting knives used to pierce through chain mail.

For those interested in Spanish knives do a search for Gaucho knives, which are mostly from the same Euro sources as the SW US/Mexican knives. While Toledo Spain is famous for it's blades, the vast majority of those imported to the Americas came from Sheffield or Germany (Solingen in particular).

One good overview of Gaucho knives www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/facon/criollo.html

[isaac]

Great article! Thg posted knife is something like/between a gaucho puñale and cuchillo de campo. Neat knives and history!

[Chuck Burrows]

an interesting factoid about Argentine gauchos - there are about 40,000 Jewish folks from eastern Europe in particular Russia, who immigrated to Argentina in the late 1800's and became gauchos. They wear the yarmulke under their wide brim hats, but the culture is fading.

www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/132922/argentina-last-jewish-cowboys