Here is a piece that you seldom see offered for sale these days! It is an original Confederate hand forged pike. These were spears made by the Confederacy during the early days of the Civil War. This is the version that is referred to by collectors as being the "Baltimore" style pike. They get this nickname because when the Maryland was heavily considering secession, a Regiment of Massachusetts soldiers were sent to the city of Baltimore. In response, the citizens of Baltimore were to be armed with assistance of Marshal Kane, who was the Police Marshall of Baltimore. He along with a wealthy Baltimore citizen, Ross Winans, to make several thousand pikes. The estimate of the number of pikes produced were between 2,000 and 4,000 pikes. They were produced with wrought iron blades mounted on wooden staffs or poles. This information comes from the book by Rodney Hilton Brown entitled, American Polearms 1526-1865. He also adds that they were quickly assembled with a wide variation of size but all having the same basic features. This one now measures 50-1/2 inches from tip to tip with the end being bent over but we will talk about that in a little bit. The last 13 inches being the spear portion of the pike. This long pattern of the wood is designed so the soldier on the ground could use it for defense against a charging enemy. It didn't take long for them to realize that if you were that close you were too close so only a relatively small amount were produced. One thing that I just love about this pike is that the spear portion is bent over. You can tell that after it's time of use as a weapon, they bent it to use as a hoe. It is kind of the reverse of turning the plowshares into swords. What a cool thing! This is a fantastic piece of weaponry from a war that went from spears and daggers to machine guns and torpedoes in only four years. It is a nice and original Civil War Confederate relic for $1,450.00 and as you can see, it has a million dollars worth of cool factor.