I know the feeling-It is pretty gratifying when the recipient listens to what I know about the history of the axe in question. When I can tell that the information is not really all that interesting, it makes me want my axe back. But that's only happened once. The others have been a real joy.
Forced patina looks good, I've used it a couple times on hawks I made. I've been thinking about using "Browning solution" and bleach instead of Blue and bleach to see if the results would be different.
I would guess this axe was made for the export market being stamped in "2 1/2" lbs?
Nice job -Take care