INCREDIBLY RARE 1860’s Hand Forged E. Barnes Ivory Handled Bowie Knife with Leather Sheath

Edward Barnes (c.1796-1876) was first listed in 1828 as a pen and pocket knife maker in Hollis Croft.  In 1833, he was based in Meadow Street; then, at the beginning of the 1840s, moved to Hammond Street.   By 1845, when he had been joined by his sons – Isaac (1822-1896) and Edward Jun. (1828-1864) – the address was Solly Street and Wheeldon Street.

Edward Barnes & Sons was a prolific maker of knives for the American market before the Civil War. Appropriately, the trade mark was ‘U*S’. Barnes’ speciality was Bowie knives. In the 1850s and early 1860s, the firm had an office in various streets in Manhattan’s hardware district in New York. Isaac and Edward Jun. operated this office.

Isaac managed the business at Wheeldon Works.  By 1871, Isaac (aged 48) employed 20 men and four girls. His father died, aged 80, on 16 October 1876, at Broad Lane, where Isaac lived.  ‘New York and San Francisco papers please copy’, was the only other information in his press obituary. Isaac – who had vacated Wheeldon Works in 1874 and sold the stock (Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 10 January 1874) – registered the U*S mark and continued at Columbia Works, West Street, where by the early 1880s he employed 15 men. Products included razors, desk knives, erasers, and buttonhooks. Isaac’s son, Edward (b.1858) – depressed by a decline in trade – hanged himself in his warehouse on 11 November 1885. The firm apparently ceased business.