I went to a War and Peace show the other day, it's the biggest one in Europe and attracts stall holders from all over Europe, especially Germany.

There was this German guy hand stamping dog tags on this anvil. Didn't get to ask him much about it as he was talking in German to someone and I didn't hang about as there was a concerning number of swastikas in his area.

Looks to me like it's been milled, the top's so flat. Just a hardy hole, no pritchel. Weird hollow shape at the back, it was in shadow so I'm not sure how well you can see that. Anyway, there you are...

 

     

Interesting piece, indeed! Thank you for sharing, Joel.

The tapered slot was done to accept attachments.  Different style "stakes" were made to slide into the slot.  EZ in and EZ removal.

Very interesting, especially that deep hollow back. Wonder if that was for weight reduction in a military unit that moved often, wartime material savings, or both.

If that horn was fully round then it seems to have had a lot of material removed... 

 

It's pretty cool. But the cynic in me thinks you could stamp anything on to an anvil if you wanted ..... just saying. 

 

Andy

I don't think the stamping is anything other than modern.  If the anvil has been so heavily used that you needed to mill down the face (note the edges of the tooling slot), that angled face would be equally used and any original stamping would be ruined.

 

The stamping is pristine and doesn't match the rest of the anvil.  Thin letters and numbers would be easily collapsed by an errant hammer blow, and there's absolutely nothing.

 

Also, of all the ID marks I've seen on militaria, I've never seen such a large and complete identifier.  Coded alpha-numeric systems that abbreviate but still positively identify... sure.  A huge billboard that gives you everything, including a non-sensical date???

 

Great anvil, though.  I love the big hollow.

Would be interesting to find out if it really was from the 1st Panzer Division. That may also explain the cross cut for special tooling.

there is nothing that says that had to be an id mark/stamp lots of troops and people would decorate kit with their own identifiers when they had free time

i know when doing trail maintenance and people were board at night while camping on sight lots of handles got infancy crew designators  burned or carved into them to pass the time

Interesting markings on the anvil.  Wikipedia explains some of the markings.   "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" (LAH).

Knowing that there are great many fakes of things nazi German, If this thing is in fact authentic it leads me to wonder what it was used for. Machinists and Mechanics of tanks maybe? Their Horse Cavalry was the 8th Waffen SS Florian Geyer. Obviously this one wasn't used by them.

 

I'm going to ask around and look into this a bit. Interesting piece.

George

It is the opinion of the knowledgable folks that I've asked that this thing is in all likelihood a fake.

That writing was added later for who knows why, but there was really no good reason for the German SS or Government to mark an anvil like that.

 

If anybody can come up with some proof of authenticity I'd sure like to hear about it. Till then I'm calling BS on this one.

The fact that the markings are on a working face of the anvil sure seems to be "wrong"

Nothing about this anvil being what it first appears to be really adds up.  All indicators point to modern markings added to attract attention, especially on the military show circuit where this was sighted.  To that end, I'd say the effort was wildly successful.  

 

WWII era marked Nazi anvil? Not likely.  

Recent manufacture anvil with "retro" markings added?  I think we have a winner.