Very old archaic axe found in my great-grandfathers workingshag

Humppa

Humppa

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Jul 25, 2010
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My great-granddad was 93 years old, when he died in 1993. He survived two worldwars (and so on and an).

The axe I is hammered forged with pretty marcant smitty-marks. Well, I exchanged the handle. There were already wood-worms in the handle, so decided to get a new one on it. It´s pretty tall and heavy.

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Here´s the axe in its full size.

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And here´s the other side of the axe, where you can see the hammered forge marks on the axehead

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I guess, some of you guys have also such nice old pieces in your collection. IMO has the axe an age between 70 and 90 years til now. It might have been made here in Bavaria.

I hope you guys could enjoy the pics.

Kind regards
Andi
 
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Cool pics Andi!

I'm sure your grandy will be proud that you make good use of it! Thanks for sharing!

J
 
Thank you guys!

I´m really proud of it, when I found it in the shag it was allover with rust. I removed it and found that beauty. I sharpened it with a simple skythe stone, and removed the old handle. Pretty cool right now. It already made a lot of wood (we heaten with that), then it had to rest about two or three decades, now I found it and it gets a lot of work again.

Kind regards
Andi
 
Might be older than that. Nice piece, but more importantly, has HISTORY to it. That is more important, and dont ever lose that.
 
Hi guys!

Well, maybe it´s older than that. But quality lives long ~ 100 years? It´s a piece of real good craftsmanship. I like the look of it, especially that raw-smitty-marks where it´s hammerforged. I also got a carpenters hatchet at home (left side, I think), where are also theese marks are pretty good to see.

Theese axes where made as working horses. It didn´t matter how it looked. My great-grandpa didn´t like to spend to much money on his tools.

This is a family relique. Not very valueable for money, but the story it could tell would be amazing, I think.

I can´t read the smitty-stamp at all, so I can´t tell, in which smitty it has been made. But it must have been a local one...

Kind regards
Andi
 
Hi guys!

I have to give a little update about the age of the axe. It seems that this one is about 120 years old and handforged in Austria at that time. I live on the austrian border, so that easily be right.

I seems that this one was in family til the day it was forged. Long time and really historical tool. I love it, working with it too. It makes every work without anything about complaining. Good old fellow!

Greetz from Bavaria
 
I was just going to remark that it looks very Austro-Hungarian/Germanic in form. Very nice!
 
Well, it seems that at that time borders were not as closed as they were a couple of years ago. It might be an hungarian pattern forged in Austria or Germany or the other way round :D

I really like that one to use or just to look at it. I have not often seen such great smittys mark at any tool. Except from a carpenters hatchet, I already posted here.

Kind regards
 
Beautiful old axe. You might look for a weld line about 1/2" or less from the edge. Many old axes had a small piece of high carbon steel forge welded onto an axe head made of plain steel or wrought iron. Clean up the top and bottom edges and have a look there.
 
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