Eye Candy

S

Skiv

Joined
Feb 21, 2006
Messages
157
Took me a couple of days to get around to grabbing some snaps, but here you go:

In all its glory...



Walters Black Diamond label...



Original handle...



At least 40 years old, if it was made the day the company closed! That handle's a real time machine. Not many make 'em that slim anymore.

Skiv
 
What a Beauty. Love the branding on the haft. Bet she doesn't spend any time bouncing around on the back of the truck or lying out behind the wood-shed.

I have a really nice old single bit 'Walters'.

Anyone heard from that mountain man from Montana...Bear Hunter?

regards...Frank
 
Truly is eye candy.

The red doubles in this photo have a different paint job and a "3 1/2" stamped on the handle below the head:

Canadian Axe said:
...

IPHONE1545-2.jpg
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Awesome !! What length is the handle? Looks like it'll reach out and touch the next county. :-)
 
When they're in that fine a shape you sure don't want to try it out on a tree or anything! Gotta be a neat feeling when you discover one of these in a back room somewhere and the owner says "aw shucks, ain't been no use to me so how bout you just gimme $25 fer it."
 
300Six said:
When they're in that fine a shape you sure don't want to try it out on a tree or anything! Gotta be a neat feeling when you discover one of these in a back room somewhere and the owner says "aw shucks, ain't been no use to me so how bout you just gimme $25 fer it."
Click to expand...

Well, the owner actually said that it'd been hangin' in the shop since his Dad owned the store. Store started in 1957 but I would guess mid-60s for this axe. The price was $100 and I paid without a quiver. My wife fell in love with it and wants me to hang it on the living room wall. Gotta love a woman who knows a good axe when she sees it!
 
Skiv said:
Well, the owner actually said that it'd been hangin' in the shop since his Dad owned the store. Store started in 1957 but I would guess mid-60s for this axe. The price was $100 and I paid without a quiver. My wife fell in love with it and wants me to hang it on the living room wall. Gotta love a woman who knows a good axe when she sees it!
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Definitely a perfectly credible answer and I too would have sprung $100 (20 years ago?) just to have it. In the 60s and 70s (and maybe the 80s) the BC Ferries Corp emergency stations on all their ships (these were Walters Black Diamond fire axes, mind you) were brand new exactly like that and with perfect labels and all, but I never got up the gumption to break the glass and swap the incumbent with a newer store-bought version. Who knows whatever happened to these babies?
And you know, history aside, are/were they that much better than what you can buy these days? Especially if the boat was on fire and your life depended on it? Morley Walter's Hull PQ (now known as City of Gatineau) factory team were long-term apprenticed and had very specific tasks and likely the wood 'sticker' was considerably more experienced at choosing and making handles than anyone today and could therefore safely choose to make them wonderfully thin. Hickory is not a common hardwood in these parts (Ottawa/Gatineau) and Walters commanded quite a bit of this lumber for their line-up and likely sourced it from places like Pennsylvania where it was commercially available and where the sap wood growth rings were well separated.
 
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