I picked up this old blade at an antique shop in upstate NY. In general I wouldn't consider something like this "my thing" but it just spoke to me: "hilt me, sharpen me, use me!".
The surface has obvious forging marks, and is covered in small rust pits with black patina on top of them. Overall impression between this and the shape is of some kind of fantasy bad guy weapon, like say an Uruk-hai from Lord of the Rings could carry as a sidearm/backup. That hook point looks like it would work pretty well as a back spike on a medieval weapon.
The 8.5" long x 6.5" wide blade has nice distal taper (over 5mm at base to under 3mm) and 6" tang tapers even more radically, almost flat ribbon at the end. Based on all that, I would consider it pretty old (like 19th century) and not factory made. But it is stamped with DB2456 in standard modern looking script (see attachment). So it must have come from a factory and not too old, I guess first half of 20th century?
I looked around online and found similar blade shape only at one modern Italian billhook model (doesn't look obviously forged though) and a French 19th century antique.
If anybody has any ideas as to age/origin of the blade, please let me know!
Anyway, I am in the process of mounting it with a nicer sort of handle than a tool would normally get. Using walnut with copper ferrules, and probably will add some brass accents as well.
Will leave the blade flats in the current state, just reestablish the edges. Going for that "fantasy bad guy weapon" look (which I had never been the least bit attracted to before).
I am curious how the tang angle it is set up with going to work for me. I would place it more inline with centerline of the blade, but it was made with this distinct angle for some reason. When done, will try to cut different sorts of things with both edges and hopefully will find that there was a good reason for this shape...
Alex.
Attachment: 247.83 KBstamp [ Download ]
Attachment: 264.99 KBblade [ Download ]