Just wondering if anyone had any I-dee what brand anvil this might be.

My tools came from a Great-Uncle in South Central Virginia, Sutart to be exact, by way of my Dad. Uncle Emmet gave the stuff to my Dad probably 35-40 years ago and he never did anything with it. Now it's mine and I'm starting to learn what I can.

I wire brushed the anvil trying to make out the stampings and found "102" on the off side, and it weighs 102 LB. How 'bout that. Under the "102" looks to be the date "1914". There are the remains of a line of letters but I can't make anything out but the last one that appears to be an "S". Can't make out anything on the front, but there are partial numbers or letters.

It rings like a bell and has really good bounce. By the pits I wondered if it could be cast steel.

Any information is GREATLY appreciated.

There's also a pic of my little "shop in the woods".

It looks like a Soderfors to me. Cast steel with a welded in steel face. It rings like a bell is almost an understatement.

In pic 4, above and to the right of the 102 are "ORS" preceeded by what could be the top of an "F".

Have you tried a pencil rubbing?

Or buy a piece of sidewalk chalk and rub the anvil hard, then wipe the surface off. Lots of ways to do it up to painting it and sanding the paint back off but I don't recommend that one. It works really well if it's already painted though.

Another thing you can do is shoot with oblique light. Place one strong light so it shines along the side of the anvil at a low angle and take the pic from perpendicular without a flash using a tripod. Do NOT move the camera. Move the light to the other side and setting it for oblique lighting shoot another pic.

Then if you have photoshop or similar overlay the two pics and any lettering will be much more visible. If you use two different colors of light (say red and blue) the effect will be much stronger.

Frequently though, just shooting one angle of oblique light will bring out enough detail to read.

Frosty

Hey Frosty, now that is anvil forensics.

kinda resembles my 1893 fisher but the markings arent right

Hey Frosty, now that is anvil forensics.

You would've had to work on the crack crew to see oblique lighting the way I do. Walk down a paved road with the sun at your back looking for cracks, then turn around and walk into it and you'll see what I mean.

At least I didn't tell him to swab it for a FeNA test.

Frosty

I can't help you with the id, but rubbing the surface with shaving cream will help bring out the markings. Someone on here shared that with me when I was trying to ID an anvil and it helped me to see things that weren't there before.

Nice to see an old family anvil end up with someone who will use it!

Thanks for all the replies and info. I only wish I got to use it more than a couple of days a week, but my "payin' job" takes too much time.