Recent content by Mark D. Zalesky

Last Day to Voice Your Opposition to the Government's Advisory Council Today is the last day to email letters for the Advisory Council's meeting on the ivory ban -- please take a few minutes to do so. Then, why not cc your concerns to your congressmen and the White House? These new...

Call to Action -- comments due Monday, March 17 IMPORTANT -- For those who'd like their opinions heard On March 20, 2014 the Presidential Task Force's Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking, the group that has proposed the ban on antique/vintage/pre-ban ivory, will hold an important...

The proposed regulations (it's not a bill, these are amended regulations to the Endangered Species Art put into motion by Executive Order -- no Congress involved here) does focus on elephant ivory -- HOWEVER... the onus is on you to prove that the ivory object the enforcing agent is thinking...

Knife World article on ivory ban You can get a PDF of the cover story on the ivory ban from the April edition of KNIFE WORLD right here: http://www.knifeworld.com It presents an overview of what we're looking at, less the background on how the ban won't help elephant populations (that was in...

The catalog mentioned in the press release is still being written right now, but we hope to have it available within a few months. It will be very nicely done (thanks in large part to Buddy Thomson's photography) and the price should be quite reasonable. Mark Z

This style is the possible "percussion cap" type mentioned above -- I think these have only been seen on early English bowies (1830s era). This dogbone handled bowie (the term describes the handle shape) is by W. Butcher and these knives are typically found etched "Arkansas Toothpick". Mark Z

That little doodad (in its many forms) is what collectors refer to as a "Spanish notch" (though it's not necessarily of Spanish origin and often is more than just a notch.) Some of them may have a special purpose -- the best suggestion I've heard yet is that a certain style might have been...

Just in case anyone lives within range of Little Rock, here's the schedule for opening weekend. All of these events are free and open to the public. Friday December 13th 12:30 - 4:00 PM Bowie Knife Symposium in the Ottenheimer Theater at the Museum. [talks on Samuel Bell, James Black...

I have distributed plenty of photos of Bell's work, and have encouraged makers to handle the ones I own, but I'm not a big fan of scale drawings. I'd much rather see "historically inspired knives" than makers trying to duplicate an existing knife down to the exact dimensions. Take Bell's ideas...

Wish I'd had more old knives to share with the crowd at Bowie's, but now you know where most of mine are!

...and thank you for that, sir! You must be the fella who kept coming back to buy another one. Enjoyed visiting with you and hope the books are serving you well. You got it, it's a Bell bowie (or dirk, you can debate that til the cows come home.) There are 7 or 8 Bell knives in the exhibit...