A proto-American boarding axe?

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

Having trouble posting pics. Let me try again.

Is this the one? My gut says tool and that the spikes are a comb, but for what? I think the handle is a recent replacement. Too bad they didn't post a pic of the eye.

[Jim McDougall]

Capn, this one is a conundrum! While having the character of hafted axes for various uses by virtue of the shaft itself, there is nothing about the head which resembles an 'ice axe' nor any sort of boarding axe.
Personally I think it was wise to pass without having any sort of comparison to align this with.
I have no idea what was in the sellers 'detail' nor how they arrived at or supported the classification of this as an ice axe, presuming they mean the type used by mountaineers.
The 'pick' is anything but a spike and its rounded character seems to suggest it has become the 'adze' (=blade) ? while the part of the head supposed to be the actual adze is something akin to the head of a rake.

Clearly some sort of hafted tool or implement, not sure what maritime application would be at hand, but as we know, over the years we have seen bizarre items that had some arcane use in period, now long forgotten.

Hopefully somebody out there might recognize this curious item for future reference.

As point of reference for the 'ice axe' denomination, an 1872 illustration from Wiki.

[M ELEY]

Hello Interested Party and thanks for responding. No, this was another axe from the same grouping, but the one I was trying to post was auction #0200. For some reason, couldn't get the pics to post.

This one you posted was also losted as an ice axe. it's a weird one as well and have no clue what it was used for!

[M ELEY]

Hello Jim and thank you for coming in on this one! For once, I'm glad to hear this isn't what I thought it might be! Usually, I'll jump the gun and take a chance. If it had some maritime provenance, it would have been worth quite a bit.

Please note that the pic posted by Interested Party is NOT the piece in question, but still, if you can see the auction post, there are definately no solid answers. An adze or perhaps a 'climbing' mountaineer axe might be the best suggestion. I wish I could have gotten the pics to post for future reference, as more floks over time might be able to solidly pinpoint this odd fellow down!

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by M ELEY

Hello Jim and thank you for coming in on this one! For once, I'm glad to hear this isn't what I thought it might be! Usually, I'll jump the gun and take a chance. If it had some maritime provenance, it would have been worth quite a bit.

Please note that the pic posted by Interested Party is NOT the piece in question, but still, if you can see the auction post, there are definately no solid answers. An adze or perhaps a 'climbing' mountaineer axe might be the best suggestion. I wish I could have gotten the pics to post for future reference, as more floks over time might be able to solidly pinpoint this odd fellow down!

Thanks Capn,
I tried to access the auction site but for some reason after the third time still could not make it. This is often the case in my experience with many online situations. I could not imagine how this 'rake' (?) could be misconstrued for an ice axe! From what I can gather, ice axes seem fairly consistent in their composition comprised simply of blade and pick head, on a shaft often with a spike.

Just curious as a point of curiosity, with boarding axes and such maritime items, do they typically have rack or issue numbers? The really great items have initials of the ships they were assigned to, and these seem to have remained in place for considerable time.

[M ELEY]

Excellent point, Jim, conerning rack numbers on boarding axes. It stands to reason that if it were a true naval boarding axe, they would have had some type of official marking and possible rack number. However, many of those shown in Gilkerson had the U.S. stamp (or British broad arrow or French manufacturing company, etc, etc, depending on the country), many didn't have rack numbers. Likewise, if it were for the merchantile fleet, it could have quite a different shape than the traditional government-issue boarding axes. Just like the private purchase cutlasses for privateers varied in shape from the traditional cutlasses of the naval powers, so too could boarding axes.

I think this might work here-

[M ELEY]

The whole item with haft-

[CutlassCollector]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

Just curious as a point of curiosity, with boarding axes and such maritime items, do they typically have rack or issue numbers? The really great items have initials of the ships they were assigned to, and these seem to have remained in place for considerable time.

Rack numbers are not often found on boarding axes with the exception of British 1859 model axes which sometimes have a diamond shaped brass plate, rivetted to the handle, with a rack number similar to those found on cutlasses.
I have not seen a US axe with a rack number but then there are few survivors, so that is not conclusive.

As Mark says most of regulation models have ownership marks, such as US or the broad arrow, or an anchor for French axes. But private purchase axes may not be marked at all.