CONFEDERATE CLIP POINT BOWIE WITH SALVAGED MUSICIAN SWORD BRASS HILT

$2,750.00

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 490-3265

Shipping: Determined by Method & Location of buyer

To Order:
Call 717-334-0347,
Fax 717-334-5016, or E-mail

This clip-point Bowie a great example of southern improvisation- a kind of weapons-making version of folk art – not sophisticated, but with an appeal of it own.  Measuring 19.5 inches overall, the knife has a 13.25 inch blade that is 1.5 inches wide at the hilt, slightly curved, and sports a 3 5/8 inch clip point. The blade is simply fashioned, flat, with no fuller or ricasso, and crudely mounted with wedges showing at the guard that marred the base of the blade, but is more than sufficient for the purpose, gently curved, and the classical clip-point is rather nicely proportioned. The metal is steel gray in color with some dark gray spotting and some superficial brown near the tip. The surface is good. The edge is good, with some very slight corrosion and only couple spots of unevenness near the tip.

The hilt is taken from a Model 1840 musician’s sword- captured, salvaged, or perhaps the soldier’s own (CS General DH Hill remarked the army needed “shooters not tooters.”) The pattern is the same as the NCO, but we see no sign of a double-clamshell counterguard. The hilt had likely been damaged already- the knucklebow shows a rather crude break, although the maker may have decided he was doing enough work for what he was being paid to finish it better. The base of the quillon, however, shows a fracture that may have occurred in the remounting- the blade tang was secured in the hilt with wedges at the guard and then peened flat on the pommel- if so, the maker may not have wanted to stress it more by working more on the knucklebow. This likely explains also why he did not dis-assemble it again to correct the orientation of the guard: the pommel cap shows the inletting for the terminal of the knucklebow on the underside, correctly in line with the blade edge, but the guard was put on upside down and the broken knucklebow, now forming a curved second quillon, is awkwardly positioned on the top. Of course, any request by the buyer to change it at that stage would likely be answered with something terse, if not profane, in any case.

This has a great look and deserves a place in a display of Confederate side knives and Bowies.    [sr]  [ph:m]

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