Trade Axe Makers Mark
- Thread starter WawaDuane
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nhbenz
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The "Brades Co. Cast Steel" mark appears to put it in the 1800's, from items I find online. Here is a discussion of some folks that researched the company history a bit: OldTools Archive -- thread with message 144803
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View attachment 1758452[/ATTACH]
I think my axe is similar to yours mine looks like there is a makers mark just about the bit but it isn't very visible I think I see a quadrilateral outline. This is slip fit eye as well.
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Here is an example of 17th–century trade ax, typically made in northern Spain and traded by the French with American Indians.
I get the impression that your axe head dates to the early 19thc.
"Part of the problem of focusing attention on the American/Canadian axe arises from the fact that the earliest ones used here were made in Europe, and certainly the first ones made here were European in character. Thus, in the earliest colonial times a dividing line could not be drawn between the two categories. As a matter of fact, the object was really a European–American axe. Because iron, unlike wood, is similar regardless of the place it was made, the essential substance of an axe does not help to identify its origin. Short of some identifiable maker's mark, the manufacturers of most of our early axes must remain anonymous.
It seems certain that most of the first axes made in North America were made and used on the Atlantic seaboard, a few exceptions occurring when trading companies brought in blacksmiths to their centers of exchange to repair and resharpen axes. As settlers moved westward and southward, their needs were supplied by smiths who went with them and were responsive to individual needs. This procedure was the beginning of very high specialization in the forms of axes, a differentiation which was picked up by the big manufacturers in the nineteenth century. The axes were mostly of the felling variety, but there were other purposes for which an axe was needed.
The pace of specialization increased; as evidence of this trend, one manufacturer informed the writer that at one time the company manufactured about three hundred different types. The president of the Mann Edge Tool Company, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, reported that in 1969 they were producing seventy different patterns; however, the bulk of their production involved only about twenty. The ax became quite specialized in Europe during the Middle Ages and afterward. When European colonists dispersed throughout the New World, they brought their tools and their knowledge with them."
Nice find Duane,
Dave
I get the impression that your axe head dates to the early 19thc.
"Part of the problem of focusing attention on the American/Canadian axe arises from the fact that the earliest ones used here were made in Europe, and certainly the first ones made here were European in character. Thus, in the earliest colonial times a dividing line could not be drawn between the two categories. As a matter of fact, the object was really a European–American axe. Because iron, unlike wood, is similar regardless of the place it was made, the essential substance of an axe does not help to identify its origin. Short of some identifiable maker's mark, the manufacturers of most of our early axes must remain anonymous.
It seems certain that most of the first axes made in North America were made and used on the Atlantic seaboard, a few exceptions occurring when trading companies brought in blacksmiths to their centers of exchange to repair and resharpen axes. As settlers moved westward and southward, their needs were supplied by smiths who went with them and were responsive to individual needs. This procedure was the beginning of very high specialization in the forms of axes, a differentiation which was picked up by the big manufacturers in the nineteenth century. The axes were mostly of the felling variety, but there were other purposes for which an axe was needed.
The pace of specialization increased; as evidence of this trend, one manufacturer informed the writer that at one time the company manufactured about three hundred different types. The president of the Mann Edge Tool Company, in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, reported that in 1969 they were producing seventy different patterns; however, the bulk of their production involved only about twenty. The ax became quite specialized in Europe during the Middle Ages and afterward. When European colonists dispersed throughout the New World, they brought their tools and their knowledge with them."
Nice find Duane,
Dave
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