anvil weight marking question

[evfreek]

Hi. I just passed up a Peter Wright anvil with local pickup on Ebay. It was marked "100". This should mean 112 lbs, according to the CWT system. But, the seller weighed it, and said that it only weighed 90 lbs, saying that 20 lbs must have chipped off the face. I asked for a photo of the face, since none was provided. Indeed, the face looked pretty gouged up in places, and much of the edges was missing. So, I decided to bid less than $1 per pound, and of course lost horribly.

My question is can an anvil lose that much material off the face? It seems that the face would have to be nearly missing to lose over 20 lbs. Or, is that "100" marking only approximate?

[ThomasPowers]

If it was a PW and stamped 1.0.0 and weighed 90 I would not bid more than 10 cents a pound for it.

Old style anvils have tool steel plate(s) forge welded across the top of the body to make the face. They can be broken off leaving just the soft wrought iron body. This may be what has happened to that one.

Weight markings are usually not exact but they generally are close within 10 pounds might be ok but over 20 pounds is a warning sign as I have never seen one that far out!

[evfreek]

Well, thanks, Thomas! I will be more careful next time. This is the first anvil I have seen around here sell for less than $2 per pound. The face did look pretty ragged in the photo's that the seller sent me. Perhaps it was indeed missing. Someone else around here was selling an anvil for under $3 per pound. It was horribly swaybacked and barely had a decent inch of edge total on both sides. My definition of a good edge is something that you can set down a traditional leaf transition. There are those, however, who suggest that this is not a job for an anvil, but rather for a hardy block. It is really convenient to have that little edge, in my opinion, and it saves precious time expecially if you have to make a few dozen.