rustyanchor

AIA says 1914 +/- 2 years 304 should be your weight. Mark

Looks like a piece of railroad track shaped into an anvil to me.

Told you you needed it, now give it a good home and let it do what it is supposed to do. I hate "decorative" anvils, vises, post drills, etc. "Oh it looks so cute in my garden...", "No I don't have a clue what that cranky thingy hanging on the wall with a drill bit in it is, but it looks cool and is old..." ARRRRRAGH!!! Enjoy Mark

AIA says 1906 plus or minus 2 years... Enjoy it! Mark

Well...Are you going to get your money's worth out of it? $1.25 a pound seems like a good price if you can use or need a 100 pound solid surface. An anvil is a very useful tool even if you are not constantly using it for blacksmithing, it is 100 pounds in a pretty compact package that has lots of square and a few rounded edges for all sorts of fun things. I had a cast iron ASO long before I started seriously beating on metal. Good weight for holding something in place while glue sets, exciting to kick when I wasn't looking where I was putting my big feet. Lots of uses, but do you need it? (OF COURSE YOU DO) Mark

Beautiful vise and hopefully Grandpaw would be happy that it is going back to doing what it should be doing, rather than collecting rust. Remember his Grandfather and Mother everytime you use it. Hopefully your friend doesn't get too mad that you are putting it to use. Mark

Dave, Congratulations on your acceptance. Very nice pieces. Mark

Spruce, Out of curosity where are you located? The flattened screw threads are more than likely from where it passes thru the movable jaw and has rubbed over the years. As long as the vise closes up tight, no problem, the "working" part of the threads looks fine. The chipped edges on the screw box shouldn't cause any problem, I have a couple vises with the same type of chipping. I figure sombody tried to tighten something in the vise with minimal thread in the box and it chipped out. I don't think your screw or box is original to the vise, but if it works use it. I'm know there are vise gurus here, hopefully one of them will offer you some insight on make and age. Mark

Dan, Please understand I was not trying to be obnoxious, just offering observations from my limited experience and reading. In the end it is yours to do with as you see fit. My fear with repairing the edges on my anvil is messing it up and ending up with a worse anvil than I started with. I learned to work with the gouges and figure they give Mr Hudson "character". Best of luck. Mark

dcraven: As a heads up, most of the anvil horns you run across are blunted and there seems to be a pretty good reason. After you re forge your horn to a nice sharp point and gouge yourself on it, you will re blunt it. I am no expert on anvils, but from the pics your anvil doesn't look in bad shape, The questions become: does the anvil serve it's purpose, can the mushroomed edges be ground and dressed, it the top plate still in good condition and solidly welded through out ? If yes, why "restore" a good anvil? If the top plate is thin, cracked, loose, etc. then a restoration is in order My big anvil has torch gouges all around the top edges and has been edge dressed at some point in it's life but it is still very servicable and I don't see a reason to try to make it "better" Just my 2 cents (now I'm broke...) Mark

In VA I found a 4" Columbian in good shape for $40 at a local junk shop 3 years ago, the owner had it sitting in his wharehouse in a corner, "been sitting in there for years" he said. The going ebay rate was much higher plus shipping. That was the only vise I could find locally, every now and then one would come up on CL but they went fast or the price was for a vise believed to be made of gold. Moved to S C KY and have found numerous post vises in a much more reasonable price range. Look at 'junk' stores that have machinery and hardware type stuff. I have found 3 vises just wandering into places that buy old estates and resell the stuff. My latest vise is a 6" Iron City that was on CL for at least a week and the guy wanted $75. I am sure location plays a major part in the availibility and price of the tools we are looking for but there are tools stuck all over just waiting for us to find them. Ask people, take a picture with you when you ask, some people don't know what a post/leg vise looks like Be persistant and Good luck! Mark

Dillon, I think the things you are showing are pretty cool, that said, IF you can find the right buyer they will like it and buy it. With the stuff I make 99% of the people who look have no interest, or are interested if I price it at yard sale prices. Tthe ones who are interested will buy without a second thought. From experience, how much you can sell for depends on where you display, and the crowd that shows up. Set up at yard sales and you will get yard sale prices, set up at craft fairs and shows and you get better prices, one of the problems with big craft shows is entry fees get higher the bigger the show is.. I do most of my stuff out of horseshoes and trail rides and a few small horse shows have usually proven to be good places to set up, most let me set up for nothing, or a donated prize for an auction. I don't change my prices depending on location, I know how much work I put into a piece and ask a fair price. Mark

I did a good bit of wood working and eventually got frustrated with glue and slipping joints. It took so long for the glue to set up and I would usually knock a joint out of alignment before it had set. I wanted to learn to weld and I figured out that welding was like instant set glue, so I started sticking metal together, then I wanted to bend metal, so I needed an anvil, then a forge, and so it went. For me, metal is much more forgiving than wood, I can reheat and rebend if I don't like my first few attempts, if I cut short I can add a little length, if I need a thicker piece I can make a thicker piece. I am still not very good at metal working but I enjoy it and others seem to like what I make.

Looks like the top plate has seen better days, I think I would take a pass unless you are desperate and the price comes way down.

Welcome According to AIA your anvil was born in 1909, plus or minus 2 years. Enjoy it Mark

If it is yours and it works for what you want it for, it is a great anvil! At the very least it is a much better anvil than the ASO you started with.

Chris, I would say you have a nice big cast steel anvil. A cast steel would not have a plate on top as the face would have been hardened. Someone may have welded the Pritchel for whatever reason that made sense to them, or it may never have had one, who knows. As long as you are having fun with the anvil and it serves you, it is a good anvil. A friend had a Swedish anvil that had one little crown on the 'off' side (right side looking at the horn) from where most US made anvils are marked, believe it also had a weight stamped somewhere. They were the only markings he could find on the anvil. It was a cast steel anvil and had sat under a pecan tree for years, because the tree needed iron according to the owner. I have a 3/4 inch bearing that gives a crappy rebound when dropped, I have a 1/2 inch that seems to almost get back to the height I dropped it from, dunno. I have had an errant hit or two that almost put the hammer in my face, so I am fairly sure that my anvil has some good rebound, but not with that 3/4 bearing. Maybe I need to invest in another bearing. Enjoy your anvil. Mark

Hummmm.... My detective work with the help of AIA: It darn sure looks like a modern patternened anvil (1851 or later), Pritchels were pretty much standard from 1830 or so on, this doesn't look to be that old of a pattern. Maybe a special order without a Pritchel? It has flat topped feet which came along around 1851. Could have been in a fire which could take away some of the temper on the top, may explain low rebound and face marring. A slight ring would assume a cast steel or forged wrought iron/steel body, does it have a discernable weld line at the waist or for the top plate? Is there a mold line running from front to back under the horn and heel? Try to ring it without the chains to the stump and see if it rings louder. So basically you have a nice clean anvil with a possibly soft face. Use it and have fun with it. Mark

Not sure how I got to be "advanced" ??? I pulled into Pusan in the '80s and at some point tried the Kim Chee, I don't remember it killing me so it must have been OK. I would try to sample as much of the local food as I could stomach when I pulled into a country, most was pretty good, a few things well...the locals can keep and enjoy. Post vises are really great tools but they are also a strange tool, the makers didn't seem to mark them as much as other tools. I have 3 that I cannot find a makers name on, some have a weight or a year but no tool maker that I can find. Some of the members here have much more info on who made a vise by the design or particular style of some feature. I believe Frank Turley has some good insight on the various makers differences/designs. The markings I have found on my vises have been located on the front jaw, so that is a good place to start wire wheeling. As I said, I hope your Grand Nephew really enjoys the equipment and appriciates the family connection, maybe the smell of Kim Chee still lingers... Be good Mark

Good deal. I have a 10X10 tent as well and other misc stuff, once we have a date, we can see what we are short on.

Cool stuff. Do you have any idea of what part of the US you will be visiting?

Dave, I'm in, let me know what you need and I'll see what I can do to help. Mark

Do you by chance need another nephew??? From AIA: The 110 is the weight and a S/N of 23214 would be 1901 Trenton S/Ns only went as high as 225551 in Jun of 1953, if the 7 is actually a 2 it could be a 1953 manufacture... Some Trenton S/Ns had an A prefix and I have not read enough of the Trenton section to see if there is a reason, or there were other prefixes. Hope your Grand nephew appriciates the gift.

Since I moved to KY, almost all my orders come from my website or facebook, I am not making a fortune but got enough Christmas orders to more than cover my time, materials, website expenses, business cards, etc. for the year. As Steve mentioned there is more to getting traffic to your website than just putting a couple of pretty pictures up. I have a site designer and manager, neither my wife or I are computer wizards and frankly we don't care to mess with it. Point being is a professional designer can get you traffic. If you google horseshoe art, my site is the first one that comes up. I am sure that I am not the biggest seller, nor the most well known, nor the one who who has been doing it the longest, nor is my site the coolest (hasn't been updated since we put it up, badly needs updating). BUT it is the first one that comes up. How-Don't have a clue, but the site designer does her thing and it is so. We also have a link to facebook with the latest stuff. FB is a good and free place to show your stuff off and sell it. Good luck

AIA says your anvil was made in 1920. When you say different, do you mean the A in front of the S/N? HB reached S/N 250,000 in 1917 and started with A1 in 1918.