Big vintage knife question

[BowEd]

The whole premise about a corn knife is the weight in the blade to cut through things thick as it's very very sharp.I've cut tons of large dried sunflower stalks 1.5" thick through like butter with a corn knife like I showed walking bean fields.They don't do that any more nowadays.It's all done with chemicals.I'm sure it would cut sugar cane too.
OO...Why would your knife show a taper on the tip at the point?That's for stabbing and butchering.

[paoliguy]

Didn't they use knives similar to that for cutting tobacco?

[bowtarist]

Yup, that's a corn knife beadman, you can still buy them new on brown county Indiana. What you have OO an old butchering knife. Been used a lot too. Probably for more than butchering. Looks like a good old knife w lots of it's own memories. When you process cattle or hog, generally they used a bigger knife then we do today to cut up a deer or goat or sheep, whatever we are butchering today on our own. If it were mine I'd sharpen it up and put it w the rest of my kitchen knives. I'll send you a pic of the one I use to cut up hog or cut pizza. 😃 You can choose to post the pic or not. Good find in my mind.

[osage outlaw]

Here is a picture of Derik's knife.  Looks like a good quality old knife.

[bowtarist]

Since I've had er, she's cut 'er's share of fresh meat and pizza. 😃😃

[EdwardS]

The first knife looks for all the world to me like an old trade knife, such as what we would consider a "scalper."  My thoughts for that are the wear pattern on the blade from repeated sharpenings.  The Natives preferred softer metal knives, as they would sharpen up with just regular rocks, but when the traders introduced better quality metals they balked, as the knives ate up their grindstones.

I don't have it in my hands, or I might could tell you a little more. I'm not even stating specifically that's what you have-merely that is immediately what came to mind when I saw it.  Kinda felt like staring at a ghost.