A cleaned up head, looking for ID

T

trailmaker

Joined
May 15, 2011
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506
This axe was sent to me from Hungary but it could have been forged in Germany or Austria as well. It's symmetrical with an eight inch cutting edge. The stamp says "HERKULES". I believe it is designed to be used in some stage of the hewing process but I'm not sure. I'd like to know how this pattern was hafted traditionally but I can't find any pictures anywhere. Anybody have any ideas about this head and how it should be hafted?
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Hi Trailmaker, It's a Goosewing axe. If you google it you'll find a few pics and some info.

Regards

Robin
 
Pipeman said:
Hi Trailmaker, It's a Goosewing axe. If you google it you'll find a few pics and some info.

Regards

Robin
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Thanks for the info Pipeman. I did some research and most of the axes called "Goosewing" I came across have a single bevel and look like this
German-Broad-Axe-001-lg.jpg


I did come across a couple of axes more similar to mine and they were referred to as "roughing broadaxes". I guess it's a subset of the goosewing category. The more familiar goosewings like the one above were for the finishing work and ones like mine were for the preceding rougher work.
 
trailmaker said:
Wow that's quite a resource, thanks. That should prove useful as the axe collection grows.
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Another resource, this time in English, is:
"German Cutlers, Toolmakers and Metalsmiths, An Illustrated Register of Trademarks and Brand Names 1871-1945", by John Walter, 2010

available as a .pdf at
http://www.archivingindustry.com/cutlers&toolmakers/cutlermarks-1.pdf

from which I got the following additional information:

Herkules (1895): J. Heyn, Stettin.
HERKULES (1901): Herm. Herdegen, Solingen
 
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