A 19th century naval boarding ax

[M ELEY]

Excellently put, Jim! And I appreciate those quotes as well as I haven't looked at my copy in awhile. i was just about to make this very same statement, but not nearly as eloquently as you have! I understand Bruno's concerns with it appearing less aged. The problem with this, however, is that many of these axes never saw action and sat in a rack (or a barrel, as they did in Age of Fighting Sail where they literally 'rolled out the barrel' during a boarding). Likewise, there are many examples of known boarding axes that appear ever more 'minty' than mine. The front/rear langets on mine are seen on French boarding axes, but also on fire axes, military trench tools, etc. But the difference is, most of the fire axes with said langets have a square eye, like the French boarding axes. My example has a round eye, like the Brit and (some) American patterns. I can't remember seeing a fire ax with front/rear langets and a round eye. Likewise, most fire axes were machine-made pieces coming out mid-19th and later. The langets on mine are definitely made by hand, uneven, with the prongs (for lack of a better word) that extend over the eye being primitive and again hand-made. Finally, the haft is made on a lathe, which seems odd for something coming out of the Industrial Age and in large batches. The head also appears to have minor smithing flaws, pointing to it not being cast...

[CutlassCollector]

Hi Mark,

It is a great axe but very hard to positively identify for all those reasons already expressed by Jim and others.
The evolutionary link to fire axes is well known. Early French personal fire axes were almost exact copies of their naval cousins - just smaller. There are Gilpin fire axes identical to the mid 19th century boarding axe that are marked to some of the first British fire brigades created earlier in the century.

Most surviving boarding axe examples tend to be military. I guess this is because they may have been returned to stores for re-use when a ship was scrapped or sold and also being well marked they may have been more likely to have drawn a collectors eye in later years.
But Mark is right we know much less about private purchase axes, they are much harder to identify and much rarer. Ship owners would have purchased spike axes made locally that could do the job or they may well have been supplied by the shipyard as part of the equipment. This would have included axes following military patterns but unmarked.

I can't be sure either way but I would tend to agree with Bruno in that it is probably a later axe.

Unlike langets that are forged as part of the head, separate langets need a way to stop the shaft pulling up or down through the eye. Usually a step in the wood underneath and lugs over the top as in French and Scandinavian axes do the job.

It is hard to tell from pictures alone but the lugs on top are embedded in the head. A recesses need to be cut out in the head to accept the lugs - easy to do with machine tools a lot harder using hand tools. If they were just hammered over as opposed to into a recess it would be too weak.
If taking the trouble of making the top flush then there was probably a reason. Is there any sign of a way that a cap was fixed over the eye?

Jim sums it up well...:

Without specific markings or provenance we cannot unequivocably say this axe is one or the other, but safely that it is distinctly of a form that was used in both an axe on vessels as well as in fire fighting ashore.

CC

[M ELEY]

Thanks for commenting, David. I get it and have to decide if I can 'live' with an uncertain piece in the collection or not. Perhaps I'll just buy one of the known examples. I'm just drawn to some of these mystery pieces (private purchase)

[M ELEY]

More pics to clarify (or muddy the waters further ) of the ax. Note that the langets are extremely rough at the eye. Likewise, they are not identical to each other in length/thickness and they are not straight, appearing to be more individually crafted. Still on the fence with this one-

I forgot to include dimensions- 17" tall, head total length 8 1/2", spike approx 4", blade length 3", cutting edge 3 1/4", eye width approx 2". This would seem too small for a fire tool? The haft narrows dramatically towards the end, which never had a cap, lanyard hole, etc.