The Giant Humongous Two-handed Scimitar

[rcmodel]

I bought this thing off a flea market junk table years ago.
Why?
No idea, except my wife wanted it.

She had me make her a pair of oak hangers and mount it on the kitchen wall right over the breakfast bar.

(I’m here to tell ya, you don’t want to get in an argument with her over your poached egg on toast & orange flavored Metamucil either!)







I have no clue who made it, or why?
If you have any ideas what it was made for, I’d like to hear them?

It is hand forged, 3/8” thick at the tang, with a 11 ¼” blade, 20 ½” OAL, and weighs over 2 pounds.
It has a taper tang, and tapered blade.

Unfortunately, whoever forged it apparently didn’t know much about steel selection, or tempering.
I tried using it for brush clearing once, but the blade edge flaked out like a flint arrow head, or rolled over every hit on a little green sapling.

Oh well!
My wife still likes it 20 years later!
She even takes it down and dusts it occasionally.

Sometimes, she even gets The Thousand Yard Stare while dusting it and looking at me.

I would love to get rid of it.
But it would leave holes in the kitchen wall I’d have to patch if I took it down.

rc

 

[Rail Driver]

It looks like what my ex father in law used to cut tobacco leaf from the stem, or maybe a cane knife (heavy machete?)

Maybe cut from an old mower blade?

 

[rcmodel]

Thats kinda what I was thinking when I bought it.
It came from around Weston MO, and they still grow some tobacco around there.

But I'm not sure you could mess up a mower blade that bad no matter how you tried to temper it after forging.

I suppose they could have burnt all the carbon out of it forging it, and then burnt out some more while finish grinding it.

rc

 

[Rail Driver]

Thats kinda what I was thinking when I bought it.
It came from around Weston MO, and they still grow some tobacco around there.

But I'm not sure you could mess up a mower blade that bad no matter how you tried to temper it after forging.

I suppose they could have burnt all the carbon out of it forging it, and then burnt out some more while finish grinding it.

rc

I have seen some... poor quality old blades... but yeah probably not a mower blade. the more I look at it, the more it looks purpose built.


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[kBob]

Rail driver,

In many miles of following a primer as a toater I ain't never seen nobody use a knife to remove a tobacco leaf.

Never used a knife for anything in a tobacco shade but cutting string or fending off other workers.

Grew up in Quincy, Greensboro, and Madison in the '60s. Guess how I spent my summers?

Now cane knives ....I seen cane knives. You wasnt a wide blade to help you handle setting things aside.

Course we always said they do thing different in Tallytown ;-)

-kBob

 

[JimStC]

Grew up in KY. One summer decided I didn't want to drive a truck for my father. So I went out to the tobacco farms and got hired at one. When time came to cut the stalks and move the tobacco to the barns we used a hatchet with a long handle. Didn't take me long to figure out that driving a truck was a better job.
That was some hot hard work. Not saying that a long knife wouldn't get the job done. I just used what the farmer gave me.

Jim

 

[Gordon]

Wrong part of the country to find a whale or seal fletching knife , I guess.

 

[308win]

My Grandfather had a corn knife with similar characteristics in the handle/blade ratio but the spine was straight, the blade thinner (a lot), and the blade was narrow at the handle and wide at the tip. It was used to cut and shock corn.