Damaged Boarding Axe?

[mgolab]

Thank you both for the responses. I received it yesterday. Definitely not a boarding axe, but fairly sure some type of weapon.

Hand forged steel. Handle is old, along with langets. Feels like a weapon in hand. Overall length is 18 inches. Length of head is 6 inches x 2.75. Overall weight is 1 pound, 3 oz. Blade is very thin.

The eye walls are too thin for a type of tool.

Found in Pennsylvania.

[mgolab]

I attempted to take a picture to show the thinnest of the blade.

[M ELEY]

The haft does indeed look very old. It could perhaps be a 'field piece', a primitive type spike axe/tomahawk. The langets not typical for -hawks, but there are so many variations based on the smith. It could still be a much earlier repurposed piece as well. I see what you mean about the thinning of the eye-

[mgolab]

Thanks again Mark for the comments. I found the attached image, No. 42, on the right, from the old book Armouries in the Tower of London. I though it bears some resemblance.

I gently cleaned the axe up a bit and, interestingly, the cutting edge and spike, appear to be forge welded in steel. The rest of the head what appears to be iron.

Curious piece, in my opinion.

[mgolab]

Also not sure whether this is a faded maker's mark. Hard to tell.

[CutlassCollector]

Yes, definitely looks more like a weapon with that thinness of blade, lightness helps with speed.
Fire axes/hatchets tend to be chunkier designed to break through doors or open up the roof to let smoke out. So, not a fire axe after all.

Normal, of course, to have a steel insert for the blade. Unusual that the spike maybe steel as well.

Sorry, can't help with the maker's mark.

[M ELEY]

Thanks, David, for coming in on this one. Although uncommon, there are spike tomahawks that will occasionally be found with both a steel bit AND a steel spike, like this early one from my own collection. This one dates pre-1800, has very thin 'walls' around the eye and possibly an original haft-