Unmarked Hudson Bay Pattern head

[Triplelock]

I've been hitting the garage sales hard lately, found this:

The shape seems pretty distinctive, and I'm guessing it's the big brother of this other one I found (I should have gotten better pictures before I gave it to my dad, sorry for the small picture):

Or I guess I should say bigger brother. It's still not very big, it's just that this other one was so delightfully tiny.

Thing is the little one says Norlund on it, which doesn't seem to appear on this other one. Despite appearing to be made the same way as the little one. It's certainly been around at least a little bit, long enough to gather a bunch of rust (took most of that off before the pictures here with some fine steel wool and kroil), and suffer some abuse as a hammer.

Did Norlund ever not mark them? Could the marking have been removed? Am I missing it? Is this a "Norlund Style"? Copy?

 

[ecdw]

The stamps on norlunds are pretty deep , and really grinding it off really devalues it.
Still a desirable head IMO , it really makes no sense for a manufacture to release a blade with no stamp as again its just a hudson bay “no name “ ....
That being said , If i saw this head in the wild and it was cheap id snatch it up in a heartbeat no stamp or not.

 

[Triplelock]

Well, at $5 it wasn't quite the deal the little one was at $1, but hey you can't win them all I guess.

At this point I'm trying to decide what kind of handle it needs.

 

[crbnSteeladdict]

I've been hitting the garage sales hard lately, found this:

The shape seems pretty distinctive, and I'm guessing it's the big brother of this other one I found (I should have gotten better pictures before I gave it to my dad, sorry for the small picture):

Or I guess I should say bigger brother. It's still not very big, it's just that this other one was so delightfully tiny.

Thing is the little one says Norlund on it, which doesn't seem to appear on this other one. Despite appearing to be made the same way as the little one. It's certainly been around at least a little bit, long enough to gather a bunch of rust (took most of that off before the pictures here with some fine steel wool and kroil), and suffer some abuse as a hammer.

Did Norlund ever not mark them? Could the marking have been removed? Am I missing it? Is this a "Norlund Style"? Copy?

A lot of axes has been sold with just a paper label. It is Hudson Bay pattern axe. It looks like product made by Collins/Mann but could you post top down pictures of the eye. Picture showing surface of the steel inside the eye could be helpful, too.

 

[Triplelock]

Ah hah, this is making more sense. Thanks for bearing with a complete newbie on all of this.

I tried to grab some pictures to show what you need, getting light inside the eye and a shot of it was kind of hard, I think I managed one side however:

 

[crbnSteeladdict]

Ah hah, this is making more sense. Thanks for bearing with a complete newbie on all of this.

I tried to grab some pictures to show what you need, getting light inside the eye and a shot of it was kind of hard, I think I managed one side however:

I've just bothered Chris Killinger about Paper Label Norlunds (Thank you Chris!!!)
His response: "To answer you original question. I have never seen any evidence of a unmarked Norlund. Keep in mind, Mann made Norlunds and was common for them to mark several other patterns as Norlund. So they could have easily sold none marked Norlunds for a different contract".

To me the shape, the eye, bad grinding job looks like very late METco's product. Maybe it was paper label or somebody went to town with a grinder and removed Collins or Norlund maker's marks.

 

[A17]

I have absolutely no proof of my suspicions, but I'd swear up and down that the forging marks and overall finish on that are nearly identical to Mann "M" axes, particularly the michigan patterns. Also, there is no trace of the very severe grinding that would have been required to remove a Norlund stamp.

 

[Triplelock]

So I did my first rehang and have been learning sharpen with this axe;

I quite like it. Chopped through a thick spruce branch with it no problem. I was actually a little shocked by how easy it was actually. I have it fairly sharp but not anywhere near as nice as a lot of the axes I see on this forum.

I don't think I was perfect in putting it on, but it's on there like nobody's business, and most importantly I learned a lot doing it.

Seeing as this is just a (quite oversized for this head) hickory handle from the local hardware store (which I sanded down, played around with a little stain on, and have started the process of applying BLO over time to), I feel like it's cool to play around with it. I think I am going to file it down a bit. I find that with this head choking up on it and just cutting works nicely, but there's a bit too much handle or my hand size at that point. I figure I might as well play around with this one.

My only real regret is that I took a bit of the patina off the top of it when I was sawing off the excess handle.

In any case, any suggestions are welcome. This is a lot of fun but I still feel like I am probably don't know a lot of what I don't know.