Fernando,
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Originally Posted by fernando
No doubt the ratchet purpose is the one million dollar question, Chris. Personally, while in absence of hard evidence, i fail to digest that the multiple crack is a back up to the main notch; why would you have four, five or six back ups all in a row ?. On the other hand i can easily accept that, the knives with one only notch are those for domestic utility, while those with multiple cracks have a lethal vocation. And then we go on the ratchet purpose; the version i fancy is that related with the noise produced, not with safety ... and saying that, i would realize that such noise is made to warn the victim (?) that a navaja atack is iminent ... be it a law enforcement or some consuetudinary code of ethics.
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You raise some perplexing questions, and I'll rank them alongside another one; Why were so many navajas of the 20th century inscribed with the ubiquitous `TOLEDO' inscription, when they were actually being made in Albacete and Santa Cruz De Mudela? A common guess is that the tourists wanted to buy a piece of famous Toledo steel. So it may well be the same with the carraca.
What i find puzzling about the ratchets is that many navajas, not just Spanish but also Italian had this feature, yet so many had only three teeth, which came into play only at the final phases of opening or at the early stages of closure.
I think that we have to treat this mystery in the same way as we treat the equally mysterious notch at the heel of Nepalese Kukris, which also defies explanation.
Cheers
Chris