Collins Axe

Nearly all our talk, though, was about logging, because logging was what loggers talked about. They mixed it into everything.
Norman Maclean, Logging and Pimping and "Your Pal, Jim", 1976



My father gave me my first axe on my 11th birthday, he bought me a single bit Collins axe at the Lyon and Garrett Hardware store in Red Bluff, back when the store was on Main Street and still in business. That axe's been re-handled a couple of time and the poll still wears that "Collins blue" paint. I use to use it to split kindling, but now it sits in the tool box with the rest of my axe collection. I found this wonderful Collins axe advertisement, I think it was part of a calendar, at an antique store in Redding.

Comments

  1. wilson--the last Collins axes I saw, back in Montana some years ago, were Mexican-made. They were a bit rough but I almost bought one, just because I figured that the brand would be gone. didn't have the (modest) price of the axe, though, so it remains mine only in memory...which may have been as well, since the axe of the imagination is always sharper than the one that I've put off sharpening from last year's firewood-gathering...

    ReplyDelete
  2. and oh, my goodness--the collins name is still in the market after all. It's a band of the Mann company, but they claim that the Collins axes are US-made. but ah, do they make a "nessmuk" belt-axe?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts