Native American spike tomahawk, fur trade pole axes and skinning knives

[M ELEY]

Of course, the question always comes up as to what is a real tomahawk, what is just a tool and what is a downright fake. If you decide to go into this field of collecting, you sometimes have to take chances and, of course, try to educate yourself. I am no expert, but have been doing research on these for awhile now.
Spike axes in particular are shifty. Axes that closely resemble them include fire axes, taffy cutting tools, ice hatchets, camp axes, mining tools and foreign axes (fokos, etc). Some excellent resources include Hartzler's book on tomahawks, Peterson's treatise on Native American axes and the following two web-sites-

https://www.furtradetomahawks.com/

https://tatcalite.tripod.com/index.htm