Mystery Axe
 

I'm not sure where to place this so i'll start with it here.
This isn't mine, but belongs to a friend. It was labeled as a "French fur trade battleaxe", but that seems highly doubtful. It is possibly very recent, but it does have a vintage look, so who knows...
...um...so who knows? Anyone? Thanks! :)

Possibly a firemans axe.

To my eye this looks like a blacksmith's conversion of some sort of hammer head, or maybe recycling of a piece of axle.

The handle looks like it has been forge welded to the head.

The cutting edge is quite black, so maybe we're looking at a piece of steel inserted into an iron body. Can you see a joint? Inspection under magnification can assist.

Is there an eye in the head to take a timber handle? Maybe filled with a separate piece of metal? If not, then maybe its not a hammer head conversion, but that handle does look like a forge weld to the head, so it cannot be very recent, unless its a hobbyist's work.

I don't know about a war axe, I'd say something more like a case-makers hatchet.

A very tool-like look to it.

I think it might be a "Coal Hammer". When I was a lot younger coal arrived in sacks and was poured into a coal bunker ready for domestic use. Sometimes the pieces were too big to go on the fire, so you broke them up with a hammer. I can remember doing this as a lad. Some of these hammers were a bit fanciful, This could be one of them.

What are the dimensions David?
The blunt end seems to be quite peened over signifying that it has been subjected to blows from an equally hard object. I have seen old splitting wedges showing the same deformation.

Here's a railroad coal spike hammer, 20 in, handle, note the mushroomed head from hitting the coal to break it up. this one also has a spike. The axe blade would be handy for splitting kindling to start the fire. When I was a younger, I had to start a coal fire in the pot belly stove out in the tool room/workshop behind the garage every morning so the family would have hot water. We had a hatchet for the coal busting & kindling process...