As a sign of respect they started calling the big horking blades
"Bowie Knives" after the battle at the Alamo not before...So then what is a Bowie knife?
Well the Bowie knife was nothing fancy, no special attributes, no advanced designs just a plain old clip point--common butcher knife of the time, and was never patterned after or derived from a sword, sorry! Unless, of course they had a Napoleonic blade sitting around, broken that they used for all or part of the metal.
Story goes that Rezin was even supposed to have used part of a meteor to make it—so did hundreds of other makers as they were/are very rich in iron…But Rezin didn’t make it!
Yes, it is a style of knife, a designation so to speak but there is NO idea of what the original looked like, they know that Rezin didn’t make it for him, they don't know if a piece of a meteorite was put into it, they don't know how long or wide or thick or heavy it was, they don't know if it was brass backed (probably was as that was the style), they don't know if it a clip point, they don't know if it was a large bladed Sheffield made knife--THEY DON'T KNOW...call it speculation, call it myth...So then what is a Bowie knife?
Is it a clip point blade, a butcher knife blade, a Wostenholm pattern, a Michael Price pattern, a Daniel Searles pattern, a Samuel Bell pattern, a Henry Schively pattern, a Jonathan Crookes pattern, a Cephas Ham pattern or a California (San Francisco) pattern etc. as the Bowie Bros had numerous knives made for them that they sold and ALL are called Bowie Knives.
That's like a number of maker's supplying a 3 blade folding pocket knife like a Stockman's knife to Wal-Mart in different sizes and configurations and it then becoming a "Wal-Mart Knife"!
NO ONE knows what the knife that Jim used at the Sandbar Fight looked like, exactly (vague in the print media of the time) but they do know it wasn’t the same knife that he had with him at the Alamo...The knife they have on display there, from the Mexican officer, is "attributed" to him but no one can say if it actually was his as that style of horking big knife was quite popular as a fighting knife during that time period.
There is a nice photo of the different styles side by each in the
WCKA - Western Canada Knife Assoc newsletter by Saskatchewan maker Garth Hindmarch...
So then what is a Bowie knife? I collect them and I don't know...maker says it's a Bowie then it's a Bowie, I guess!