Pickaxe dimensions

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Bruce Parker

What do period British civilian picks look like? Do they also have the narrow shank and metal reinforced helve? Or is that unique to army picks?

See David's earlier reply:

Originally Posted by David Herbert

In my experience all civilian British picks look exactly like the one in the above post #25. It is only British military picks that have the metal reinforcement at the business end of the handle. I have always assumed that this was because they were stowed separated and repeatedly separating the civilian type would cause wear to the wood. The Americans presumably just went with standard civilian tools. As usual Canada got caught in the middle !