The knife-edged broad axe was sharpened on both sides and did not have a swell over the eye. It was a versatile hewing tool, very large and heavy. This one is stamped I Platt in a rectangular die mark on the one side. Platt was probably the maker's name. The axe was found in Connecticut.
Modern version of an earlier form of axe frequently called a bull axe because of its use in a slaughter house for felling animals by a blow on the head with the stud.
Although this trade axe appers to be of the 17th or 18th century, it could have been made as late as the twentieth when producers such as Collins Company were making such axes for their buyers in South America. An axe so large could easily be used for felling trees. The bulge of the eye would dismiss its use for hewing.
