tapered knife tangs

[buckskin billy]

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howdy yall,
 don't know if'n this is the right place to post my question but i figured it to be a good place to start.
 i'm about to buy me a couple of green river knife blades to fix up proper for my buffalo hunter personna.
most of these blades take the 3 large rivets to hold the handled in place. i'm gonna pin them on using the 5 pin method as many originals are seen with.
 my question is on the original green river blades were the tang tapered as were the tangs of early wilson butcher knives.
 i have a small forge and this is a task i've performed before on modern reproductions of the wilson knives. unfortunately i have never seen a real life green river knife to go by.
 any help or head scratching would be appreciated

[JimBob]

All the Russell Green River butcher knives where the tangs are shown in Gordon's "Great Knife Makers for the Early West" have tapered tangs until aprox.1900.

For a good idea of what Russell was offering during the period Cornell publications has a reprint of there first published catalog from 1884 -

http://www.cornellpubs.com/old-guns/item_desc.php?item_id=622

[buckskin billy]

thanks just what i was needing