G'day, I bought these a few days ago - as WWI German entrenching tool (with no markings) & Austrian axe (which I think may be German?). The axe has a little "cogwheel" manufacturers mark stamped on the head. Can anyone tell me exactly what they are please?
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Hi
Entrenching tool - it's not easy to know without markings.
I have same shovel, but I'm not sure origin of it (from same storage werhouse were ww2 germans).
That type was used by:
Austria ww1 and post ww1
Czechoslovakia
Poland
Romania
Germans ww2 - captured from other countries.
mietekComment
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Hi,
the small spade/entrenching tool looks German. I saw many of them lying around at the battlefield of Verdun but all in bad condition. The other tool may be the rare "Pionier-Axt" (engineers axe).Comment
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Thanks for the replies, does anyone know the identity of the manufacturers mark on the axe? As & when I ever get around to displaying anything properly, I fancied putting these up either side of a nice leather scabbard sawback butcher's blade marked to the 10th Pioneers - assuming they're German.Comment
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The E-tool looks like the Austrian WWI ones, most of them /in fact, maybe all/ that I have seen were made by Blechmann. Bulgaria also used these shovels.Comment
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Hi
Theodor: do you know other manufacturers of that type of shovel?
I know only what country used them, I'm not sure who produced them.
In Poland were also producers( 1939 of course).
mietekComment
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I don't know for sure, but I use blacksmith tools made by a German company called Peddinghaus, and the hammers and set tools and punches all have this cogwheel with a circle and square inside it.
Dave
Originally posted by leigh kitchenComment
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Leigh,
Actually, what you have is a pickaxe, as apposed to a regular axe that the Germans also carried. They called your example a Beilpicke. Another one, the Beil, is what we would normally call a hatchet. The Axt, is the long handled axe and the Handbeil is another form of hand axe or hatchet. These are divided into Tragbares Schanzzeug (literally, portable or easily carried entrenching tools) and Großes Schanzzeug, the long handled tools typically carried by pioneer and railway troops.
The Beilpicke had a reinforcing band that ran completely around the handle. Yours does not have this band and I have one like this too. I this might indicate that it was one of the other patterns. The original 1898 pattern was 48cm long and there were two more improved Prussian models, in 1909 and 1912.
The entrenching shovel is not a typical German style. They had no pointed end shovels that I know of (other than captured ones). I think the other postings here have correctly identified the possibilities.
Regards,
ChipComment
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