AN AMERICAN BOWIE KNIFE BY M. PRICE, SAN FRANCISCO, CIRCA 1870
with robust blade double-edged for its upper third, rectangular ricasso struck with the maker's name 'M. Price' above 'San Francisco', oval iron cross-piece, shaped tang with beaked finial at the pommel, fitted with a pair of ivory grip-scales retained by three brass rivets with German silver washers (light wear), in a leather sheath, perhaps the original, pierced with two belt apertures at the top
20.8 cm; 8 ¼ in blade

Michael Price, the celebrated knifemaker, was born in Limerick, Ireland and arrived in San Francisco in the mid 1850s. He displayed his knives at the third San Franciso Mechanics' Institute Industrial Fair in 1860 and rose to prominence in the years that followed. For a discussion of this maker see Levine 1977, pp. 95-136.