Who invented brass knuckles (6 photos)

The brass knuckles seem like something out of a "someone just took some metal, drilled some holes, and that's it." But in reality, they don't have a specific creator, like a revolver or a machine gun. The brass knuckles aren't the invention of a single person, but an idea that has appeared many times in different places: to strengthen a fist's blow so that the hand isn't damaged and the effect is maximized.





And every time the world became smaller—in street fights, on ships, in trenches, in the alleys of big cities—this idea resurfaced.

First came the "reinforced fist," not the brass knuckles



The most ancient brass knuckles weren't a metal "four-fingered" thing, but rather a method of weighting the hand. In ancient times, there were fighting belts for fistfights—what textbooks often refer to as cestes: leather wraps and "gloves," sometimes with inserts that made the blow heavier. This isn't yet a brass knuckle in its modern form, but the logic is the same: the fist becomes a weapon.





Knuckles on the hands of the "Quirinal Fist Fighter"

At the same time, designs even closer to the familiar image were encountered in Asia: for example, Indian versions of "fist weapons" with protrusions worn on the hand. There, the knuckle idea long lived in martial traditions as a distinct class of close combat weapons.

Why the "classic" brass knuckles were born in the 19th century



The modern brass knuckles—the kind you wear on your fingers—were mass-produced in Europe and the United States in the 19th century, and for good reason. Three factors converged: Cities became crowded. Fights increasingly took place not in fields, but in doorways, on stairways, in alleys, in train cars, in pubs—where long weapons were inconvenient, but a "fist" was always at hand. Mass metalworking emerged. As metal became cheaper and more accessible, items like brass knuckles ceased to be rare, homemade items. Brass knuckles worked well without training. A knife requires skill and determination, a club—space and reach. The brass knuckles made any blow more powerful, and this is precisely what made them popular among criminals. So, if we're looking for the "birthplace" of the familiar brass knuckles, it's more likely to be urban Europe and America in the second half of the 19th century than ancient times.

Wars also played their part.



The brass knuckles are an item that crops up where combat gets extremely close. During wars, and especially trench warfare, people invented and carried a variety of compact close-combat tools: knives, batons, wrist weights, and combinations of these. Not because they're beautiful, but because seconds often decide the outcome in hand-to-hand combat. Important: the military history of brass knuckles is usually not about "official weaponry," but about what emerged in practice—as personal items, homemade, captured, "just in case." Therefore, here too, one cannot name the "creator"—only the conditions that created demand.

Where does the word "brass knuckles" come from?



Interestingly, even the word itself sounds "technical." In different languages, it has had both crude and direct names. In English, one popular term is knuckle-duster, literally "knuckle duster," meaning a device that makes a blow "dusty" and heavy. In European languages, there were names related to "breaking" and "crushing."

The word "brass knuckles" emerged as a stable designation for precisely this object, and it, too, doesn't have a single "godfather": rather, it's the result of how the item became entrenched in urban culture and speech.

Why the brass knuckles were banned almost everywhere

They suffered the fate of many "simple" weapons: the simpler the item, the more difficult it is to control. The brass knuckles:

easily concealed,

requires no skill,

cause serious injuries,

are often used in sudden, domestic conflicts.

Therefore, in many countries and regions, their circulation is restricted or banned. And this is also part of the answer to the question "who invented them": the brass knuckles are a product not of engineering progress, but of social conditions, which subsequently forced society to impose bans.

So who invented it?

Short and sweet: no one.

The idea of ​​"strengthening the fist" has been around for centuries, from ancient fighting belts to the urban metal versions of the 19th century. And the "classic" brass knuckles in their familiar form became widespread when cities became large, metal became affordable, and street life became tough.