Walters axe info

L

lilfrosty

Joined
Nov 6, 2014
Messages
1
Hi There,
My grandfather used to work for Walters Axe about 50-60 years ago and along the way produced many new axes and patents for them...
He always had many axes at home and believed they were the best axes money could buy. He's since passed and handed them down to my father, who recently passed, and now my mom is wondering what to do with them.

My father thought he would some day donate them to a museum, so people could see them and it would somehow be a legacy for his father.
We have probably 15-20 of these axes, all different shapes and sizes, some in better shape than others. Many of them are really rusted because they spent time in the shed of the basement. Most of them don't have handles, but we also have a bunch of handles that my grandfather had made by hand.

My mom has someone that is interested in buying them to place as decorations in their bed and breakfast. It's an old mansion that used to belong to the Bryson family in the Ottawa Valley, whom were largely responsible for creating the logging industry in that area, so I think it would be quite an appropriate place for them.

Any idea what these things are worth?
 
Might be worth anywhere from $5 to $30 or more apiece depending on style and condition. I'm interested in them. Sending you a PM.
 
That would indeed be an appropriate destination for them, given the history of Walters axes in eastern Ontario and western Quebec. In an ideal world, they'd go to a museum where they'd be accompanied by your grandfather's story as part of an exhibit on Canadian industrial history. They might be of interest to the Canadian Museum of History, and they do have a budget for the acquisition of this sort of artifact. It might be worth getting in touch with them.

It's really your grandfather's story that is of interest here. The axes themselves are commonly found. I happened to pick one up at a farm auction last month, along with a bunch of old tools--for the grand price of five bucks.
 
Canadian Museum of Science and Tech in Ottawa devoted an entire entrance wall with all brand new Walters axes when the museum first opened in the late 60s. Mind you this was at about the time that Walters had not yet folded it's operations. And Len Lee of Lee Valley Tools also collected and displayed a vast selection of brand new Walters axes at his flagship Ottawa store during the late 1980s.
I too have gathered up a couple of dozen different Walters over the past 35 years. They are fairly common at rural properties but owners are reticent to part with them! But farm auctions and rural flea markets feature these once in awhile. During the 1950s and 1960s Walters produced quarter of a million axes per year so they can't be all that rare!
 
Your grandfather wouldn't happen to have been General Manager Ed Hamel would it? And that your parents live just off Paul Anka Drive?
 
My Walters rafting axe. (Because this thread had no pictures).

Walters%201.jpg
 
That's an absolutely lovely photo!

I'm glad to hear that at least some effort has been made to note the historical significance of Walters. It's getting harder and harder to believe that there was a time that quality tools were produced in this country. It's a different world now, for good or for ill.
 
StLawrenceFowler said:
That's an absolutely lovely photo!

I'm glad to hear that at least some effort has been made to note the historical significance of Walters. It's getting harder and harder to believe that there was a time that quality tools were produced in this country. It's a different world now, for good or for ill.
Click to expand...

Noteworthy that Walters (as a business) folded up not long after it's owner did. That Morley Walters was almost 100 years old when he packed in (in 1969) is even more of interest! Had he been much younger and had his general manager seen similar niche potential to that what the Swedes exploited, Walters Axe might still be in business today. A wealth of skill and experience (and specialized machinery) disappeared from Canada when they (new owner Baker Bros.) closed the doors in the early 1970s.
 
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