I missed you sneak these in here Joe - Nice

- they are in great shape and Borwick made many of them

... I have a similar horn handled fleam but no makers mark though it looks exactly the same as your bigger lighter horn handled fleam (but mine has a few bug bites in the horn) - same exact birds-eye pivot pin too for the blades - and no springs to worry about given they were all friction folders - My fleam was a local score from an estate and was supposedly carried in the Civil War by one of their ancestors who was an officer in the Union army and part of the CT regiment (there were other Civil War items from the same individual) -- Fleams also came in all brass handled models and others were made with a spring action mechanism - don't have one of the latter but essentially you hit a lock which releases a spring-loaded blade which subsequently hits the target (usually some type of infection or boil

- I'll leave the further details to your imagination but do believe all fleams were more for veterinarian use than for humans as was noted earlier in this thread and especially for horses

... The first time I handled a spring-loaded fleam I almost hit the lock when the seller warned me to be careful - if I had hit it before his warning I would have had first hand experience as to how it worked the hard way

. . Nothing like a little blood letting to relieve your blood pressure

......
Interestingly I have heard old fly tiers from the mid 1800s used fleams for cutting thread etc and as a fly tying tool

... in those days fly tiers tools were often repurposed items and scissors were usually from their wive's sewing boxes
