ACME Anvil Markings to ID

[Chris C]

I'm sure you are excited about your first anvil, Larry.  I know, if I could find one I wanted, I would be as excited.  There is a lot of collective knowledge on this forum and typically it's shared in a more civil way than most forums.    The only negative comments I've seen here is from people trying to share based on the mistakes they or someone they know has made.  And that is only a perceived negativity.   It's always considered a serious "no-no" to grind the top surface or edges of an anvil.  But if you bought an anvil before learning that....................well, how could you know?  Maybe the grinding was just the seller's way of smoothing up a few dings. 

"Thickness" has little or nothing to do with why grinding is so lowly thought of.  The hardened surface can easily be ground away.  But there is a way to find out if you have a usable surface.  Get yourself a 1" ball bearing.  Drop that ball bearing from a height of 12" onto the surface of the anvil.  I'm told if it rebounds more than 60% of the height from which it was dropped, you have, at least, a usable anvil.     If it's like 30% you'll know why grinding is considered so bad.

Hope this helps.............and welcome to the forum.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

On 6/19/2019 at 11:20 AM, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

Hopefully the seller didn't grind off too much of the hardened face of that anvil.

When I posted this I was speaking from personal experience, not being critical . The second anvil I acquired in the early 90s was a 125 pound Peter Wright in good usable shape as purchase but the face had a lot of dents and chisel marks with a little sway.

Not having the benefit of the internet and especially this forum, I took an angle grinder to it. I would say that I removed about 3/16 of an inch off both ends and 1/8 inch from the center. After using it for about a year when doing some heavy pounding on some 1 inch sucker rod making a large drift the face plate popped off from the sweet spot back to the hardy hole.

I was so disgusted with myself after an old time master blacksmith explained to me why that happened, was I had weakened the forge weld of the face plate when I took the grinder to it and what it would take to repair it, I gave it away.

As you say you are getting 90% rebound and if it has the same sounding ring when tapped with a hammer over the whole face you have an excellent anvil with nothing to worry about.

[ThomasPowers]

Another thing to remember is that while your questions are yours; the answers go out to the entire world and so often an answer will contain a lot of stuff *you* don't need/already know; but that somewhere someone might profit from.

My first anvil was stolen in Oklahoma City around 1982 so I can't say much about it as that was back when anvils tended to be "good ones" or "bad ones", and not "1921 HB with monolithic top" AinA is not 100% a boon to the craft.  Anyway it was a good one, 199 pounds, and I could carry it back then...

(and yes I love AinA, have an inscribed copy and once offered to buy a copy of Postman's notes when it was looking like it might not get published.)

[Chris C]

Sorry, mtodrisoll, I didn't catch that you'd already tested the rebound.  If you've got 80-90%, you are good to go.  (where's that danged "envy" emoji?)

[Black Frog]

6 hours ago, Larry Price said:

 

Do you have a pic showing further to the right?

This would be a 112k serial range, wondering what the missing digit is to the right, or if it was left off.

This is not a 1899 date anvil with an 11k serial like you first mentioned.

The base style would be different, but the obvious thing is the character style and format.  They only used that for a rather short time span, and that would be a 112k serial.  If you flip it over you'll see a caplet indentation in the base.

[Larry Price]

3 hours ago, Chris The Curious said:

Hope this helps.............and welcome to the forum.

Ya I did a ball bearing test and filmed it in slow-mo.At 10” drop it returned too 9”.Measured from all area’s of the Face.

 

[Chris C]

As I said in my last post, I apologize for having missed that you'd done that.  I didn't read your post thoroughly, and you didn't read mine thoroughly.   I feel better now that I'm not the only one who reads too fast sometimes.    And as I also implied, I'm envious of your new, very usable, anvil.  Hammer away, my friend...............let it ring.

[Black Frog]

This may be 111295, that would be correct for this base style and serial number style. 

or 112195...

There may be an over strike of the "2" on a "1" character?

 

[Larry Price]

23 hours ago, Black Frog said:

Do you have a pic showing further to the right?

It’s a 1899 with only 5 digits 11295

[Black Frog]

I know that is what you read it as, but i can assure you that is not the correct vintage.  there were times when the left off numbers, mistakes happen.  That is the incorrect base style for 1899, and that is not the correct number stamping style for 1899.  11k serial number fonts look very different.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I'm seeing the serial number as A11295 if so was it made by Hay Budden not Trenton.

[Larry Price]

 

3 hours ago, Black Frog said:

I know that is what you read it as, but i can assure you that is not the correct vintage.  there were times when the left off numbers, mistakes happen.  That is the incorrect base style for 1899, and that is not the correct number stamping style for 1899.  11k serial number fonts look very different.

Ok then it’s a 1914.

 

[Black Frog]

3 hours ago, Irondragon Forge & Clay said:

I'm seeing the serial number as A11295 if so was it made by Hay Budden not Trenton.

That is not a HB..  Very different SN styles, location placement, and character font.  Not to mention overall construction lines.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

Ok I was not aware that Trenton used a prefix A in their serial numbers. However after rereading the original post his Acme also has an A prefix. The next question is did Trenton prefix an A for all Acme anvils?

[Black Frog]

No.  Trenton used an A-prefix from the first US-production anvils on up to their middle era, then dropped it.  Didn't matter if it was ACME stamped, Trenton, or any other hardware brand.