What's This Knife?

[RavenAus]

http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/Online/object.aspx?objectID=object-36789&start=52&rows=1

I'm looking at joining a reenactment group and one of the smiths has offered to make me a period head knife at a very good price. This is the only image I could find for a medieval period leather knife, and I can't find anything earlier. The group I'm looking at joining is earlier than this, 400-700 CE England but my research hasn't turned anything up for that early. Anyone ever found anything about leatherwork in that era?

Would the spike on this be used as a scratch awl?

[DavidL]

Interesting Knife. My guess would be that you use your other hand on that metal part to control the angle of the blade for skiving or maybe not since your hand might need to hold the leather. It could be a secondary blade like a shoe knife or the curved inside "C" could be sharpened to cut like a pair of scissors pushing straight on paper.

I've seen knives like these used to only cut off the connecting pieces that were made by dies that were closely spaced, what the extra bit is I'm only guessing.

[Tree Reaper]

That looks some some kind of battle axe.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=images+for+head+knife&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=gC3BU6ndG9DKyAS9FQ

[RavenAus]

I heard the spike was used as a scratch awl? It's definitely a leather knife from the finds with it and is similar to a half-moon knife but yeah, I really would love a period knife for reenactment so finding a good design is important if I'm going to get it made

[RavenAus]

Well, it seems my google-fu is improving, I found an honest to god head knife from the right period :D So I may well be getting something made up like this.