I recently acquired a spike tomahawk for display purposes. Some may recall my posting last year on a Tansel horn from Indiana on Ebay that had its original bag, but the spike tomahawk that accompanied it had been lost or stolen. Surviving newspaper pictures of the old spike tomahawk gave a good indication of what it looked like, which is a lot like this one... so I got it to put with the old bag and Tansel horn. It's not the original one, but looks close to it. I was told by the prior owner that it was probably an English import item from early to mid-1800s. He didn't know if haft was original or not... but it has an old, damaged tack head on top. It may be an early cast head, since I don't see the tell-tale "seams" on either side of the haft on top of the head that usually indicates a forged head.
Perhaps most interesting is the traces of a large, oval cartouche stamped on the front side of the blade, almost unreadable but visible enough to know it's there. I have no clue what the cartouche is, or if the halt is original, or how old the head really it. Your comments would be appreciated.
Dimensions: 16" length, 7-3/4" blade, 1-1/4" eye, 1-15/16" blade.
Shelby Gallien
![](https://i.ibb.co/M5t5G30/Spike-front.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/LzrJYhc/Spike-rear.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/jZXN54z/Spike-top.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/jLNDDLs/spike-touchmark.jpg)
![](https://i.ibb.co/XD6phfc/Tansel-news2.jpg)