Bryce, the question in your title is not the same as the question in your post. The Kelly/TT/Vulcan history is partly available to us, and interesting to study, but of course there were axes (and axe-like tools) made and used in prior times and places. Most of those from before branding was invented or records were kept are lost to us forever, simply because they were used up, worn out, perhaps discarded or left behind when an improved tool was obtained. They crumbled or corroded back to the raw materials they were formed of.
Amateur historians need to remember that the historic data we have access to is only a small fraction of what actually happened, snippets and fragments and slivers that randomly survived until now. Put another way, what we don’t know exceeds what we do know by many orders of magnitude. The farther you go back, the larger the ratio.
I envy your massive collection, in my mind’s eye. I have a small collection of users which will never be massive, or include many valuable specimens. Like you, I enjoy researching their (rather mundane, in my case) history.
Parker