Thank you for the kind words about my knife on the blog. I thought I would try to answer some of the questions you had about it. That particular knife is based on the folder that is on the cover of Madison Grant's book. "The Knife in Homespun America". In the book he dates it between 1750 and 1790. Like the original the central panels are bone, in my case, deer bone.
From my research, both in print and inspections of originals, the blades are very often spear pointed. Or, kind of a willow leaf shape. The blade often flares to an upturned rear bolster. This enables the user to open the knife by grabbing the blade without the use of a nail nick. I have seen some, what I believe, to be early nail nicks but they seem to become common around the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It was also about this time that US production folders became more common. Until about the the middle of that century most spring back folders were imported from England.
As stated before, folders have been around for a very long time. Some of those aforementioned roman folders were even a form of a spring back folder.
Hope this is somewhat coherent and answers some of your questions, thanks again,
Steve Auvenshine
