Pirate's Axe

[CutlassCollector]

Originally Posted by kronckew

cutlass, can we get a photo of the eye from above?

That is a good idea and may give a bit more information. I don't know if they can get a shot of the top without taking it out of the case again. They have been really good at sending me photos of their boarding axe collection so I don't want to annoy them.

Thanks for the straight edge bullova as well. That was my initial thought but there are so many different styles and not many straight edge ones at that. The shape of the head where it passes through the handle seems unlike most bullova fittings.

The shape of the eye may help with that. I'll ask politely.

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by CutlassCollector

That is a good idea and may give a bit more information. I don't know if they can get a shot of the top without taking it out of the case again. They have been really good at sending me photos of their boarding axe collection so I don't want to annoy them.

Thanks for the straight edge bullova as well. That was my initial thought but there are so many different styles and not many straight edge ones at that. The shape of the head where it passes through the handle seems unlike most bullova fittings.

The shape of the eye may help with that. I'll ask politely.

that rear view looks like the blade is centred rather than offset as would have been for a carpenters plank trimming broad axe. indeed is NOT a bullova, and better for it as they are a rather light axe (except for my sikh nihang one)

[CNK1]

Hello everyone,

I'm clearly not an expert and this not in my (little) knowledge area but to me this axe looks to be german like the first of this page:

https://fr.pinterest.com/pin/68046644344684758/

So maybe this assumption could be a way to explore?

Best regards,
Clement

[kronckew]

i guess if you cut or broke the pointy ends off it you could make one like the subject axe, but that would hold for a lot of axe variants. german, scandi, russian is of course likely sources, but that covers a lot of ground too. i'm starting with an assumption the head was made like that and not salvaged from a broken head.

[Victrix]

I still think it looks E.European with some Germanic influence. Polish, Styrian (S.Austria), Saxon (perhaps used by settlers in Transylvania?). What's odd with it is the combination of decoration with martial style. Most war axes with wooden handles which I've seen have been undecorated tools intended strictly for business. They were probably not prestigeous and not carried by the wealthier warriors so there was little need to decorate the shaft.

[kronckew]

yes, who in their right minds would decorate a battle axe haft or blade?

your 'undecorated' ones prove your point nicely. just like these below:

(sailors especially have lots of time on their hands and can decorate the undecoratable. or noblemen, and officers who had underlings to do it for them)

[Victrix]

Originally Posted by kronckew

yes, who in their right minds would decorate a battle axe haft or blade?

your 'undecorated' ones prove your point nicely. just like these below:

(sailors especially have lots of time on their hands and can decorate the undecoratable. or noblemen, and officers who had underlings to do it for them)

I must confess to have no idea where the axe comes from. I was just pointing out that it's a fairly crude weapon akin to the bardiche. These were typically not very decorated and were presumably used by the less wealthy warriors. It seems to me that more Western European war axes/hammers had metal hafts whereas in E.Europe wooden hafts seemed more common, although of course it's difficult to generalize. The E.European wooden war axes/hammers that I saw often have undecorated hafts, although they are usually probably later replacements so difficult to know what the originals looked like! I'm not sure the axe in the post above is comparable to the Norwegian farmers's axes, although the bardiche as a weapon allegedly had Scandinavian origins. The decoration of the axe haft posted above does not seem particularly Scandinavian to me and, if anything, looks more Gothic in style. True, sailors seem to have a penchant for decoration so possible the axe was decorated by a bored one!