🔎 UNIDENTIFIED What was this 14" knife used for?

[oldbattleaxe]

measures 14" long. On the top of the blade it has smooth bumps on the spine. It is quite heavy.

 

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[bowwinkles]

When I was a kid and we had tools like that and they were referred to as being Butcher Knives".

 

[oldbattleaxe]

Me Too Could very well be. I have never seen a knife with humps like that on the spine though.

 

[releventchair]

Nice knife. Nice full tang and a stop to not want a guard on it.

Use it for many things.
But it's near roach belly design is more of a slicer. Also called scalpers some places at one time.

Why the back of the spine is like it is I don't know. Perhaps baton-ed on with something too hard.

If the knife held on it's side flexes just a little then it's good to go brawl against the wilderness and folks headed back of beyond might have considered it suitable.

If it's easy to bend and flexes easy it would work as a boning knife for deboning critters. Chase around bones efficiently and trim tight to them.

Otherwise ,breaking down a large animal quickly into manageable portions from deer to moose it should work.
It's design wants to slice. Not stab.
Compared to the bulbed flare on a butcher knifes profile than kind of helps cut steaks , your pictured knife is more like the modern butchers convex curve kinda like a scimitar. But curved more at the end/front. Another slicer.

General purpose but more.
And fancier than a cheap butcher knife which did much of society's work over time.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Agree with others, butcher knife.

 

[Almy]

The marks on the side and top edge appear to be made by a course grinder. That and the overall shape of the knife (including the waves on the top) suggest that it was handmade from a piece of steel, perhaps some other implement like a file or a piece of farm equipment. I like it.

 

[potsherd_creek]

Those bumps are the way it came out of someone's coal forge, handmade in a time of necessity and when function came first over clean lines. It helped a family(s) get through many a winter.
Very old, cool as heck and a keeper for sure.

 

[Tony in SC]

Blacksmith made butcher knife!

 

[ConceptualizedNetherlandr]

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What was this 14" knife used for? ... obviously it was used to butcher North American large Game animals like the one who donated the antler for the handle I also make these ​

 

[dognose]

The stye of the knife, copper rivets, atler hand grips, the appearance of the blade, lends credence to being a handmade knife. 1870s-1940s potentially.

 

[Gare]

Meat processors used these knives to process large animals.

 

[oldbattleaxe]

I like all of your comments. The humps were intentional I think?

 

[releventchair]

I like all of your comments. The humps were intentional I think?

Odd. Not sure where the humps would add any value.
I've a bumped /dented from hammer forging or something knife.
Water was used to power equipment too. (Green River Knives had a mill that was flood damaged once upon a time.)
Seems smooth finished would be desired.

Now a knife hardened just right could/can throw sparks when the spine was used for a striker.
How it is quenched matters to have the spine hard but the entire blade not brittle.

WereI to close my eyes andc throw a dart... The blade was cut out of a piece of steel using a chisel then broken away.
The maker had a dull file or tired hands or little time for the aesthetics of smoothing out the back.

Or it's a type of jimping for a purpose I don't know!