Sandbar Bowie?

[Interested Party]

First, two questions if someone had the answers: 1) Did the early Bowies made like kitchen knives have distal tapers, were they on the blade and/or tang? 2) For that matter did the trade knives shaped like butcher knives have distal taper?

Second, here are some pages, I thought might be good to put with this discussion, from Gordon B. Minnis 1983 book American Primitive Knives 1770-1870. The author dates the examples these examples from 1830s to 1860s and had some theories on the regions they were produced in. I am particularly fond of the examples that have a central ridge like katanas and X-XII century central Asian sabers to lighten the blade on pages 72 and 78.