IXL DELUXE BOWIE KNIFE with leather sheath
This classic IXL styled bowie knife features a clip point 9.5" blade of polished carbon steel. Horn handle with brass hand guard and crosshatching. Comes with a black leather sheath trimmed with silver fittings. Overall length: 15" Weight: 1.5 lbs.

THE BOWIE KNIFE
When, on 19th September 1827, the trader and land speculator James Bowie successfully defended himself in a fight on a sandbar in the River Mississippi, with a purpose-made hunting knife given to him by his brother, he became an American icon. Bowie's reputation was further enhanced by his heroic death at the Alamo in 1836. His trademark knife soon became a sought after personal effect for all would-be frontiersmen.

In the absence of an established American steel making and cutlery trade Sheffield cutlers quickly stepped in to service this demand. Bowie knives were made in Sheffield for export as early as the 1830s; the catalogue of firms manufacturing these knives included William Butcher, William Greaves, Samuel C Wragg, and Unwin & Rodgers. But it was George Wostenholm who gained pre-eminence in this field by the 1850s, and his firm - with punning trade mark - I.X.L. - continued to dominate the American market until the 1890s.