Old axes dug from an army camp

[Jason Fry]

One of my customers has an old army camp on his ranch, 1850-1920 ish. Here are a bunch of axe heads that he has found metal detecting. Do any of them stand out to you axe guys? Anything you can add or share would be great.

 

[Square_peg]

The ones that show laminations or grain in the bodies have wrought iron bodies. Those are older, likely pre-1890.

 

[crbnSteeladdict]

One of my customers has an old army camp on his ranch, 1850-1920 ish. Here are a bunch of axe heads that he has found metal detecting. Do any of them stand out to you axe guys? Anything you can add or share would be great.

Could you ask him for top down pictures of the eyes of intact heads. and weight of each of them.
https://www.libertyrifles.org/research/uniforms-equipment/original-tools

 

[Jason Fry]

I’m going to see him tomorrow, I’ll try to get some pictures of some of the more intact pieces.

 

[Jason Fry]

The hammer headed one on the right has initials on it.

 

[Jason Fry]

My phone was stone cold dead while I was there, so no pics. Most had been in the ground a long while and had substantial material loss. Many of them had clearly welded bits. On most, the eyes were very thin or deformed due to material loss. This area had been plowed plenty of times over the last 150 years, so it was hard to tell what damage was original. As in, couldn't tell if they broke and got thrown away, or got thrown away and then broken.

The one that's top center in the original pic was either accidentally deformed just perfectly, or was an offset timber hewing axe. There are tons of "bushes" and few real "trees" down here, so a traditional broadaxe type hewing axe wouldn't have been useful at all.