NATCHEZ — The sixth annual Bowie Knife Show took off like a shot Saturday.

As members of the public wound their way through the tables in the Natchez Convention Center, they were greeted with all sorts of sights of antique weaponry, from single-shot handguns and large fighting knives to muskets, swords and — even though they were from a later period that most of the other antiques — weapons from Germany’s Third Reich.

The show had a total of 70 vendors and collectors, some there to sell and others just to show off their goods, show co-founder Mike Worley said.

Representatives from across the country, as well as one from England, were present at the show.

“We had a couple of hundred members of the public come through in the first couple of hours,” Worley said. “It’s been fairly well attended for what it is.”

Some of the displays were neat, and others were practically littered with knives, guns, gun leather and parts.

Even the antiques weapons trading subculture can be an illustration of just how small a world it is, and in one instance one of the vendors at Saturday’s show had a knife that belonged to a man who had been killed by a gun owned by another vendor.

For South Lake, Texas, collector George Jackson, the show was appealing because it gave him a chance to learn more about antique weaponry, study it and contemplate what needs to be done for him to have a more complete collection.

“I started collecting guns in the 1970s, and after a while I also started collecting knives,” he said. “Both hobbies started growing together, and for the last 15 years the knives have started to take over.”

His favorite knife in the collection he had with him, which spanned from the early 1800s to the 1890s, was a yellow dog-bone handled fighting knife that had more than a few nicks in it.

“That knife has definitely seen some action,” Jackson said.

The big appeal of Saturday’s show was the fact that his knife-collecting friends would also be there, Jackson said.

“I just wanted to trade with them if I could and see their knives,” he said.