TheLearned1

I'm firing up the forge tomorrow to see how it works; I'm not so concerned about that. It's just good to know the brand if I ever need to turn it around or something like that! Besides, who doesn't get obsessive about their first real anvil?

Good to know, JHCC. It's worth noting that the hundreds weight markings are probably dot-separated (or someone tested their punch exactly there), which is supposed to be distinctive of Mouseholes---see the photo--- though I agree that that's not conclusive.

After some more elbow grease, it is marked 2.2.27 (307#). The maker's mark is very faint, but I'm pretty sure I see the letter M, and the second line definitely reads "hole;" BIGGUNDOCTOR, if you think the feet are distinctive, it probably is a Mousehole. MC Hammer, it has about 0.75 seconds of ring . I think it could be that I'm used to a higher pitched ring from a smaller anvil. And yes, I was using the rebound test. At first I did it inside a plastic tube, but I was losing like 10-20% from the ball hitting the sides, so I did it with a tape measure and the figures got a lot better. Thomas Powers, see what I said earlier; there is some ring upon second inspection, and it's gotten a lot better since I cleaned the thing. It's a lower tone than I'm used to, but this is probably because it's a lot bigger than my 65 lb piece of RR track. Thanks a lot everyone! I'm pretty pleased with this anvil for $450, that's less than one half this size in my area.

Okay, so this is my first anvil, aside from a RR track ASO. I was planning on sticking with that through the summer, but I was able to get this deal---$1.48 per (advertised) lb, not counting the car trouble it contributed to (that's a story for another time), which is very cheap for London pattern anvils in the Twin Cities (based on what I've seen). The face has a rebound of 76% on average. This is thrown off by the chip off the corner (see below) and one low spot in particular on the horn end---without those, it's more like 80%. I'm pretty sure it weighs at least 300 lbs---we used a loader to get it in the car, and two fairly strong buddies and I couldn't get it out again. We had to resort to borrowing an engine hoist. The face is quite pitted from missed hammer blows, and has sway of about 1/32" across the 21" length. It makes basically no noise, and this combined with the chipping made me think it was a cast iron, steel face "city anvil," but it has a total of 3 handling holes on the base and in the waist. So I'm not sure what it's made of, to start. The guy I got it from got it from a welding shop (they welded it to the stand, unfortunately), but didn't know where they got it from. I'm almost positive it's not wholly cast iron---the rebound is way too good for that. Second, I'm not sure who made it. I cleaned it thoroughly with vinegar (and neutralized with baking soda water), after vacuuming off 1/16" of grime. As you can see, it was painted red at some point. A visual inspection revealed no maker's marks. No problem, I thought---I happen to have a pair of magnifying surgeon's glasses. Checked it over with those, and found what looks like a very small "2," but no other letters or numbers around it. The body has been used to test chisels and punches an awful lot, and so it's very pitted. There's no upsetting block. Here are some pictures of it; does anyone have any ideas as to what the xxxx this thing is? Thanks for the help. Face of the anvil. Sorry for the potato quality, I'm still using an iPhone 4. E