Buffalo Skinner's Knives...

[Grogan]

I've recently been in touch with a sculptor-artist who lives in Kansas who has a keen interest in as well as considerable knowledge of the Buffalo Hunters.  (He certainly lives in the right area for this)

In fact he's shot several Buffalo himself as well as accompanying other hunters on a total of 31 big ranch Buffalo Hunts.

Discussing this with him, the topic of the Buffalo Skinners and what knives they used came up.

He told me that the favorite knife of the period was a rather plain set of knives made in Sheffield England by the John Wilson Knife Co.  Their knives were marketed under the name "I. Wilson".

He said there were certainly many other knife makers, including several others from Sheffield, but for those who knew what they were doing (and depended upon the best steel and sharp blades) they pretty much sought out the I. Wilson brand.

He has a number of these old I. Wilson knives and says he's taken them along on several of these Buffalo hunts where wealthy hunters have brought along custom made Skinning knives costing several hundred dollars apiece.  He said when all was said and done, they all came away in awe of how well these very plain, utilitarian old knives worked.

I made up this shadow box to put on display along a wall where I have big game prints, including one of a pair of Buffalo Runners up on a rise one of them shooting his big Sharps on his cross sticks while the other scouts and points out the next shot.

These were the knives that got the job done.

[drcook]

When I look at the post, all I see is a broken link indicator for the pics.

Dave

[J.D. Yellowhammer]

Well I see red X's.

I told you to lay off that stuff!

[Advertising]

[Grogan]

Hmm...they went up (on the preview) and after I posted...

Wonder WHAT'S UP with that?!!

I'll try to rearrange them onto a different sharing site. 

[Grogan]

You might want to start another thread and PM St. George and have him delete this one, we kinda high jacked it a bit.

It's fixed now, and it's its own thread...so no problem! 

[GunClick Rick]

Dang nice shadow box display...

['Monterrey' Jack Brass]

Grogan - you've got yourself a great display and a couple of excellent knives. Of the two, the harder one to find in my experiences is the 'sticking' knife - I've heard such called a ripping knife nowadays. Good stuff and nicely done, looks great on the wall. Thanks for sharing the info.

Brass

[Dr. Bob]

You can date Wilson knives by the stamp.  The early ones, up to about 1820 had only the pepper corn [X with the 4 dots] and diamond.  Then I. Wilson and the pepper corn & diamond.  IIRC, about 1870 the street address and Sheffield were added.  I use to know it cold, but it's been nearly 20 years since I studied it.  It is in one of the Museum of the Fur Trade quarterlies.

[Grogan]

You can date Wilson knives by the stamp.  The early ones, up to about 1820 had only the pepper corn [X with the 4 dots] and diamond.  Then I. Wilson and the pepper corn & diamond.  IIRC, about 1870 the street address and Sheffield were added.  I use to know it cold, but it's been nearly 20 years since I studied it.  It is in one of the Museum of the Fur Trade quarterlies.

Dr. Bob,

Yes, you're right. 

You can Google I. Wilson knives and somewhere in there it brings up a link to the page of the Museum of the Fur Trades along with that information.

These two I. Wilsons are only half tang with pins.  I have another, similar Skinner that's a full tang with a large single brass rivet through the center of the stocks; it still has the pins.

I'm guessing that this large rivet knife is somewhat newer?  But it still appears to be quite old, nothing of fairly recent production.

I've read that I. Wilson didn't go out of business until the 1970s.  I'm wondering if Japanese competition drove them under?