MJYoung

Thanks for all the responses! I love hearing everyone's opinion on it. It does have the handling holes on the waist and bottom. What does that signify? I guess it means its not cast. Thank you for the advice, now I know what they are I may just bear with them as they are smithing related Fair enough! I will keep in mind while I progress and see what sort of things I start to make and make a decision further down the line. Thank you! Yeah true, was just interested to find out a bit more about it Thanks! I'm looking forward to it myself. Can't wait to get crackin'! Matt Young

Thanks very much for all the information I did feel abit bad grinding the feet but there were huge gouges! I feel like I shouldve left them :(. I won't ever touch the face though. That's interesting about the horn. No wonder I couldn't find a similar looking one. Sorry Thomas, I meant London UK. My brain didn't even consider other places called London, my bad. If it were wrought iron, is that an okay material for an anvil? I know people hate cast anvils but I don't really know the different types after that. I'm learning!

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this site and to blacksmithing so I don't have any experience in this sort of thing but I recently purchased an anvil from a guy in London and I would just like to know a little more about it. Before I bought it I read up about the basics of what to look for in the anvil and this one seemed to fit the bill. I don't know an exact weight yet but it's pretty darn heavy! It has a very nice bounce, at least it feels nice to me but I have nothing to compare to but I was very surprised at how much it did bounce. It also rings a lot too. The ring goes on for quite a while which I think is due to the extended horn because if I grasp the horn where a "typical" anvil would end then the ring is a lot crisper and nicer. I have uploaded some pictures of the shape and some of the markings on the anvil. All I can make out is "BEST" which I guess is a good sign? and the "J" but can't quite make out the rest. That's why I thought I'd ask some people who actually know what they're talking about and make be able to connect the dots for me. I've tried to clean the anvil up a little bit as it was quite rusty and had flaky paint on it and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out but if anyone has any tips on how to get it nicer or how to get rid of those holes (I have no idea what they are) then I'd be very grateful. I know all of this is pretty much useless information but I'm just so excited about it and wanted to share! Thank You all in advance Matt Young