BLACK RAVEN SB

That article about Larry McPhail says that he's still looking to acquire more Black Ravens, among others.
"As a collector he continues to watch for rare and high-end axes - White, Winchester, Black Raven, and Marble, for example."

An idea you might want to consider is to offer your rare Black Raven to him to add to his collection, as a trade for some axe of "equivalent value" that he owns which you would enjoy having more than that Black Raven. If he has some duplicates he might suggest some special and more attractive (to you) axe (or axes) that he'd be willing to trade. It might be worth broaching the subject with him.

 

If a user is what he's after, I would think this axe could be traded for almost any axe he wants. There are loads of high quality axes out there that just aren't rare or don't have desirable embossing.

 

This looks like it is more rare than the embossed raven. But is it more desirable to collectors? That is a difficult question. A lot of the appeal is the embossed raven. Embossed axes in general bring more than printed axes. There are collectors that just collect embossed axes. I'm not trying to diminish the rare find here but it may or may not be a valuable axe in terms of auction results. Regardless, thanks for posting this interesting axe.

 

I also suspect it will draw less attention from collectors because it's not embossed.

 

Rarity doesn't necessarily mean valuable. All it takes though is a couple bidders but I would also suspect less interest than with an embossed Raven. It's a more interesting axe though from my perspective.

 

It's very common for folks to think they're 'value-added restorations' of axes via wire wheels and grinders. If it's a user (and let's face it the majority of axes that aren't NOS are) by all means 'go to town' on it regarding rust, mushrooming and blade profiling/sharpening but if it appears to have collector value then don't touch it except to clean off dirt and light rust. The handle on yours is shapely thin with an unclipped foot and may well be original too, or at least dates to the same era.

 

There for sure isn't many of them out there Gator. Not sure if this is the only known one but your collection has an axe in it that few if any have. So your journey into axe collecting is off to a pretty darn good start. It might not hurt to hang onto that one for awhile.

 

I beg to differ. "Right to bear arms" very much seems to have tainted the way modern Americans think. Without a gun lots of pioneers got by just fine but without an axe for sure they couldn't. There's lots of ways of putting food on the table, having to deal with raccoons, coyotes and bears (and belligerent neighbours), but it ain't at all simple to get around not having an axe for chopping and splitting wood to clear land and build and heat a house.