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why are anvils so hard to come by at a working mans salary


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Add your location to your profile and we may be able to point you toward an anvil.

 

Do a site search for TPAAAT and follow the instructions. TPAAAT usually works so carry cash in your pocket, $2-$3 a pound would be about right, but you do not have to spend it all on just one anvil, there may be other things available where the anvil is located.

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Perhaps the methodology you are using is flawed; I turned down a decent working anvil in anvil poor NM that was less than US$1 a pound last week. 

 

> The steps on the foot of the anvil indicate it's a Peter Wright or a german Trenton.
> Both are good brand anvils; yours shows wear but has a couple of Generations of life left in it.

 

 went for US $175 for a 200# anvil.

 

The general problem is people trying to buy anvils from folks wanting to maximize their profit.  Buying the anvils people are not trying to sell often is cheaper...though harder to find; you actually have to get off the internet and talk with folks face to face!

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The other bane of finding decent smithing tools is the "old = antique" mentality of sellers. Deb and I did a little yard saling on the way home from church yesterday. The very first place we stopped at had a good sized post drill pipe clamped to a light pole in the front yard. It's a Champion mod# 201, patent date Aug 8 1904. (Yeah, some things I remember without thinking. Good the no thinking part)

 

It'd been clamped to that light pole so long it was rusted solid and at least some of the rest was just laying on the ground under it. Mrs. seller told me they'd sold all the other blacksmithing tools Saturday and pointed at her flower garden. They'd gotten stupid high prices for the anvil, forge, hammers, tongs, etc. from a lady artist who had some projects in mind.

 

The post drill? Mr. seller told me he'd turned down $500 twice before. My counter? "Don't do THAT again." He even told me it used to work before it hung in the weather for a few years so of course it was seized up.

 

It seemed pretty complete but just buying enough diesel and ATF to soak it in would cost more than $100 and then the rebuilding would begin. <sigh>

 

But it's an antique! NO, it might have been but now it' just old and rusty. If I could've gotten the hand/flywheel off it without breaking it I might have considered $50. Talk immediately turned to other oh so valuable tools he had. Yeah sure. Well, I did find a 12" crescent wrench for $2.00 so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

 

Just being old does NOT make it valuable. And NOTHING is as valuable as the asking price, even most commercial retailers are willing to talk worst they can do is say no.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

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When you do find your anvil, remember to look at it as a long term rental.  Buy as good a shape anvil you can afford, use it properly for 25+ years, then sell it for more than you originally paid for it.  If cared for, it will never go down in value.

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I got a 200 lb PW for $300 because a friend who lived in Pittsburgh offered to bring one down on a moving truck if I could locate one.  By letting friends, relatives and your local ABANA group know what you're looking for with patience you'll be successful.

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Frosty I used to get the "old" all the time when I was at the fleamarkets in Ohio.  I could usually bend down and pick up a piece of gravel with a fossil in it and tell them that this was a *million* *times* *older* than what they were selling but I would trade it even since they thought age was so important...never had one take me up on it.

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You've got a couple of dynamics, the first is down here they melted any "scrap" for the war effort.  That means a lot of good anvils got melted down.  Second, collectors; you know those guys who slurp them up and never use them.  A limited market + high demand means premium prices.  That being said, too bad your on the other side of MS, I'm just about finished with a monster RR track anvil.  Keep looking, I found a 126 Kohlswa in a junk shop. 

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Join a local blacksmithing group. Last weekend at the Pennsylvania Artist Blacksmith  Asssn's  gathering there were at least 3 anvils up for sale, one from a member here. Also available were 2 forges and a separate blower and as well as a couple of vises and a bunch of top and bottom tools just to name a few of the items in the tailgate area. Most of the anvils were $2-3 a pound.

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Be a little realistic and compare costs of weights per dollar - anvil weight per dollar vs. say antifreeze or milk or oil for your car - Anvils are cheap even if you buy a new one. They last a lifetime or 10, and they will always make you money - just buy one and use it - upgrade later if needed. Take the price of an anvil over 10 years and its a very cheap hobby that will pay you back 10 fold - come on quit whinin'.

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Be a little realistic and compare costs of weights per dollar - anvil weight per dollar vs. say antifreeze or milk or oil for your car - Anvils are cheap even if you buy a new one. They last a lifetime or 10, and they will always make you money - just buy one and use it - upgrade later if needed. Take the price of an anvil over 10 years and its a very cheap hobby that will pay you back 10 fold - come on quit whinin'.

 

tru dat.

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Greetings 31,

 

We have all herd the ( CAN'T FIND AN ANVIL BLUES ) many times..  I would suggest that you use your track anvil and build some simple leaf hooks and a few standard hooks and chicken flickers for sale.. Put a can next to your track for your buy the anvil fund..  A great anvil for about  500 will pop up and if you use TPAAAT method one will show up when you least expect it and you will be ready with the can fund cash...  By selling some of your product you get to talk to people who like forged things and many times that will bring and anvil out of the barn..  During a demo a few years ago a young lady was asking around if any one needed and anvil.. No one took her serious until I talked to her... A long story short I ended up with a super 100 pound Arm and Hammer for 50 bucks...  Keep trying

 

Forge on and make beautiful things

Jim

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A friend made his own anvil, and I have been inspired by seeing the video of a retired Sheffield knifemaker to construct an anvil with removable tooling.  I am fastened by the possibility of having most if not all of the tooling for a project on the anvil, with the ability to change tooling for different projects.  It will be especially interesting will be to see how that arrangement of a Sheffield-type anvil may effect making knives.  Also, by keeping the making of a anvil as simple as possible, aspiring smiths can then hopefully have the option and incentive to make an anvil of size and function to meet their needs, at a fraction of the price of buying an anvil (if you don't count the cost of their time).

 

I also acquired a Fisher anvil for $50 at a local blacksmithing event, that other than a missing heel/hardy hole is in good condition and would be excellent for knifemaking.  I will be giving that anvil to that friend.  He is a highly skilled welder and can attach a hardy hole and heel to the cast iron body of the anvil if he so desires.  My guess is that even without the heel, this anvil is somewhere between 120 and 140 pounds.

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I recently posted a picture of an anvil stand with my Powell anvil on it.  The anvil is also missing the hardy and heel but has an excellent face, flat hard, smooth; another great anvil for bladesmithing *and* since it was "damaged" is was quite cheap, US$40 for an anvil weighing over 120#.

 

Keep your eyes open for a "damaged" anvil if you are needing an anvil cheap.

 

I also have friends who made an anvil from a large old discarded forklift tine---originally 180# of tine the finished anvil is a bit over 100# and cost them $25 for welding services---all they needed was to weld the upright section to a base plate.

 

I also once used an anvil that was the broken knuckle from a RR car coupler: it had a flat section and a curved section weighed about 80 pounds and was *free*!

 

Remember that the london pattern anvil has been around in it's final form for about 200 years; yet smithing is over 2000 years old.

Take a look at the anvil Japanese swordsmiths use, (National Geographic's "Living Treasures of Japan" documentary is a good place to see one).  They are considered to do fairly decent work on just a block anvil; you can too!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was looking for an Anvil for about two weeks now, being the only component I was missing to start knife making. Two days ago, I was helping my neighbor clean out her moms house. (40+ years living there, husband was a jack of all trades and had a bunch of cool stuff.) I finished moving all the things that she needed, so I was able to look around the house, and there was this old shack at the back. So I go and check it out, some cool antique tools, and some random pictures. Move the picture, and lo-and-behold, there's a 50+ pound anvil sitting on the floor. And that's partly why you can't find them, because people put them away and forget.
And I'm residing here in Clinton, MS. So just ask around! Lots of farmland, plenty of old families who know tons of people. Just be digilent, and when in doubt, just make do with what you have. I would have killed for an I-beam just so I could get started,

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So , i havebeen looking for an anvil that i can afford but the cheapest one i have seen so far is too small and a good 60-100 pounder is rediculous . i guess ill just have to keep using this portion of railroad track untill i get rich lol

Used to be a guy on e-bay who sold a lot of tools. "Poor Boy" Blacksmith tools I think he went by.......

The guy is dead now but was a pretty prominent individual in the trade. This individual thought it some kind of a civic duty of his to contact sellers of anvils and things and explain to them that they were selling the stuff too cheap. He would quote a lot from Postman's book and encourage people to get the prices of these things up. The guy was a nosy meddlesome PITA that felt it necessary to interject himself into things that were none of his business for whatever cheap thrills it gave him.

 

I've recently seen people on this website doing the same thing lest you think I'm singling that guy out. I guess I'm fortunate I was able to make my best deals before the advent of the internet.

 

As long as we have people out there trying to boost prices of things for their own misguided sense of fairness justice and the American way, stuff will continue to be way the heck overpriced.

George

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  • 2 weeks later...

This story made me upset. My friend, John King, just went to an auction last weekend. There was a fellow there that bought up all the concrete horses, large and small. John asked the fellow that bought the horses what he planned to do with them. The winning buyer said that the Japanese are wanting anything Americana. He takes it to a place in Georgia to re-sell it and they send it overseas. The buyer noticed my friend had bought some of the blacksmith stuff. He told John that last year he had collected 400 anvils, took them to Georgia, doubled his money and put them all of a cargo ship to Japan !!!!  400 anvils we need here and they are being sent overseas. All in the name of money. ...... Supply will dry up and anvil costs will skyrocket ...... I guarantee that ....

 

Ohio Rusty

The Ohio Frontier Forge

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And I thought $3-4 a pound was expensive.  Is there a reason for someone that would collect anvils to pay almost $28 a pound for this anvil???  Did George Washington cross the Delaware and forge the Liberty Bell with this one? 

 

post-1-0-94680000-1405118140_thumb.jpg 

 

 

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If I'm not mistaken it looks like it sold for $3k?  I've got to be missing something here, that's $33 a pound.  Forget investing in stocks, just hoard anvils, silver & gold.  I doubt it'll ever see hot metal again at that price, to each his own.

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If I'm not mistaken it looks like it sold for $3k?  I've got to be missing something here, that's $33 a pound.  Forget investing in stocks, just hoard anvils, silver & gold.  I doubt it'll ever see hot metal again at that price, to each his own.

Tell me about it. Is starting to remind me of the investment insanity surrounding class III weapons.

Have patience. It's a crazy bubble that will surely burst.

George

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I'm happy with the anvil I have and the work I'm able to do on it.  I just try to keep my eyes open to what's available in case I can upgrade.  I do have a couple of post vises lined up that need a little work if all goes right that I can get for restoration.

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I really do not think that anvil "sold".   Both offers were declined.  I think the seller just removed it from its listing.

 

The seller obviously had no idea what he had.  He listed it as a 150 lb anvil, when it had the "9", indicating a 90 lb anvil.  Also, the patent date markings on the anvil are not rare.  I have lots of anvils with them.  They were put on some anvils in the 1880's/90's.  Just another incarnation of what Fisher did.  The anvil is not in good shape either.  If was NOS/perfect, it is probably a $400 anvil.  But it was not. 

 

I personally think that the seller was just out there fishing for a sucker.  Someone who knows nothing about anvils.  Strange place to do it, with lots of other listings of better/bigger/other brands at competitive prices.   

 

Bottom line....anyone can list and ask whatever price they want on the 'bay'.  I once saw a listing for a "rock" that supposedly was from Mars that had a price of $25,000,000.  I do not think that sold either.

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