Brazilian Gaucho-Themed Knife

[Lee]

An inquiry received by e-mail from a reader:

A friend of mine has a knife that she has been told is very old. It appears to resemble the Verijeros from Argentina, which would be reasonable as this is where the family was for many generations, as fairly wealthy land owners. It has a relief of a set of boleros on one side of the scabbard, and riding spurs on the other, with other relief work we believe could be some kind of flower. On the blade it has the word Platinox, under this is capital letter H, under this is the word Hercules, under this again is a word stating with G, and under this is the word Brazil. If you or any of your members could identify and possibly even date it, she would be very grateful.

An essentially identical knife has been previously discussed on knifeforums.com and one may even see this model new in a box at worthpoint.

A gaucho theme is most clearly evident; I believe it is reasonable to call it a verijero even though the guard is a feature more associated with a facón. A nice knife, following a long tradition, but probably not very old.