Need help identifying this Swiss axe -- WP stamp?

[TimS01]

Hi there, was recently visiting Switzerland and picked up this axe head a farmer was selling. It has "HB" stamped on one side, which initially made me think Hults Bruk, but the HB looks like it was maybe added later. The proper manufacturer mark isn't anything I've seen before. It looks like maybe WP? Or PW? I'm guessing it's of German manufacture, but that's just a guess.

Here are some images:

Here's a close-up of the WP marks on the other side:

Any ideas? I'd love to know a bit more about this.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Agent_H]

I have not seen it but the holzwerken.de mentions a maker’s make that is a P W combined into one letter. Not sure what that would look like – maybe what you have there?

“PW, united to a letter, in a circle = Wilh. Pandel, Wuppertal-Küllenhahn”

https://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/marken.phtml

Not sure about the HB stuff on the other side though

 

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[TimS01]

Thanks for the info so far. So you think it was stamped with the Pandel logo, but isn't a Panel, Kevin? Interesting. I was thinking maybe the HB were the initials of its owner and they used a stamp kit to mark the head?

I dunno... FWIW it weighs just short of 1.3 kg, about 2 3/4 pounds. I couldn't figure out the number (?) beneath the main stamp. It looks like an 8 with a missing segment.

 

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[TimS01]

Very strange... Is that a common thing, re-stamping axes to try and make them more valuable?

It certainly wasn't being sold for a premium. I paid a few bucks for it.

 

[Ernest DuBois]

Very strange... Is that a common thing, re-stamping axes to try and make them more valuable?

It certainly wasn't being sold for a premium. I paid a few bucks for it.

Perhaps it gets done as a sort of self-esteem building exercise. Someone with a lowly no-namer who just cannot take the degradation and seeks validation in a logo.

 

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[TimS01]

Well, I plan to clean it up and hang it just the same. If any other markings appear along the way I'll let y'all know.

Thanks for all the info so far. If anyone else has any thoughts on the thing I'm all ears.

 

[Steve Tall]

It could be a Pandel, but that it has to have a weight in grams below that. And since it doens't have that, I believe somebody actually tried to stamp logo's in it to make it more valuable.

If it's really a counterfeit (which I don't believe), then this one is too, by the same reasoning??

Winged man with "1855" in the circle = Peter Fleuss GmbH, Wuppertal-Küllenh.
http://www.holzwerken.de/museum/hersteller/sonstige.phtml

from this earlier thread:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/axe-stamps.1405968/

 

[TimS01]

Oh, very interesting. Do you know what the 8 signifies there?

 

[Steve Tall]

It could be a Pandel, but that it has to have a weight in grams below that. And since it doens't have that, I believe somebody actually tried to stamp logo's in it to make it more valuable.

Oh, very interesting. Do you know what the 8 signifies there?

I don't know, but my guess is the manufacturer's pattern number (similar to how some Collins axes have the pattern number stamped on the head).

 

[TimS01]

Interesting, well, thanks. A little closer to figuring this out!

 

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[Steve Tall]

No thats real. It would be a right if it was exported, but Pandel only made axes for the european market, and only for mainland Europe (so excluding England). Therefore they never used the imperial system as far as I know? So its not that it couldn't be a, but there wasn't any stamping that catered to the English/Americans.



Other examples from germany that do have imperial sizes are Wiebelhaus, Helko, Ochsenkopf, to name but a few, but as far as I know all of the family Pandel weren't experting them overseas.

I'm not following your reasoning, so could you clarify? You believe the PW stamp is a fake, because it has no weight stamp, but you believe the Winged Man stamp is real (even though it also has no weight stamp)?

I was thinking that they are both real.

 

[Kevin Houtzager]

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[TimS01]

I'm not sure I follow the reasoning either... The number appears to be an 8. These are certainly not 8 pound heads...

 

[Agent_H]

The HB's are all over the place - I am inclined to say that is user done.
The circular "WP" and that large number look like something done during production, no?

If there are constraints on which side German axes were marked and their weights then my mind wanders east of Germany then.

Austria maybe?

Slovenia?

 

[Steve Tall]

...It would be kind of weird and expensive for a manufacturer who doesn't export there axes beyond thoise borders to make dies of imperial measurements...German axes by then had a DRGM (deutsches reichs gebrauhs muster...require to have a weight stamped into them in grams. DRGM was used form 1891 until 1952...That only way to not a have a weight in Grams, is to have it exported to a country beyond mainland Europe (England counts)...

On these 2 axes, where are the imperial measurements that you are referring to?

Another way to not have the weight in grams is if the axe was made before 1891.
It looks like Wilhelm Pandel began production in 1856.

"Wilhelm Pandel, „verstählte“ Hacken u.a., Nöllenhammer Weg 31 1856 – 1955"
from Historische Firmen im Wuppertal, by Hinrich Heyken
http://stadtgeschichte-wuppertal.de/hheyken_bilder/Firmen in Wuppertal_Inhaltsverz und Einl.pdf

 

[TimS01]

Wow, is it really possible this thing is that old? It doesn't look it, but then the farmer I purchased it from had kept it well-oiled.

Sadly he didn't speak a lick of English so I couldn't get any details on the head.