by Billman » Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:38 pm
The French Sheffield was further south: St Etienne and Thiers are the two towns associated with the light tool/cutlery industries. However, the Industrial Revolution in France was greatly affected by the French Revolution, and as a result many thousands of small regional edge tool makers continued in business right up to the WW2 period. Basically anywhere where there was running water for a power source there could be a water powered edge tool mill, and where there wasn't hand power sufficed...
Alsace was basically a self contained province, but was annexed by France (and later by Germany) - it became French again after WW1 - it was home to a good number of tool makers, including Goldenberg. The French National Manufacture of Arms (i.e. swords) was established there (in Klingenthal) about 1730 - a hundred years later it was sold off/privatised and Coulaux tool over the works, adapting sword smithing skills to edge tools, particularly long thin scythes They closed in the 1960's...
As in the UK, hundreds, sometimes thousands, of regional variations in patterns of tools (such as axes, billhooks. sickles, spades, hoes) existed.... The Philibert family, scythe and edge tool makers at Nans sous St Anne, in Doubs, sold tools all over France and into Switzerland and Italy - so it is likely many other edge tool makers also had a very wide market, and thus a wide range of different patterns of tool....
I agree the word Garantie on the axe probably means it was made in France (or Alsace) - the shape is maybe a little more angular than most patterns of French clog makers' (sabotiers) side axes (doloires) - but who knows.... Track down B&M and maybe we have an answer....
Last edited by
Billman on Sat Apr 05, 2014 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Collector and restorer of old agricultural edge tools, especially billhooks