I've been watching the show Peaky Blinders on Netflix...In season 3 when playing the previews they show a guy hammering on an anvil that appears to be 500+ lbs. I mean this thing is huge...I never seen an anvil so large...Has anyone else seen this and do you think the anvil is the real deal? When i say 500 lbs i may be way under estimating this mammoth? Whats your thoughts on the size?

Thanks...Bruce

I haven't seen the show, but I've seen anvils over 500 lbs. I know of at least two within a fifteen minute drive. (One's in a train museum, the other was for sale on CL a few months ago.) I've seen a couple in museums up to 700 or 800 lbs. Think there's a fisher at one in NJ about that big.

Is there a specific episode to look at?

 

Can't get it to post with the video, but found an anvil in a youtube clip of the museum where it was filmed, looks to be maybe 400 lbs.

It looked like to me that the face is near pocket high with 3 legs under it that may be like 12"-18" high - Overall length i would estimate at 30" - 36" from tip of the horn to heel ...Ive never seen one of this size. That stuff gives me the fever man...That museum would be way kool to visit! 

Basher of this forum has one that's over 860lbs if I recall correctly, that's a bit of a beast to be sure.

 

found the link

http://www.iforgeiron.com/topic/37592-ideas-for-reforging-a-867lb-anvil-bick/#comment-383398

Here's a lady anvil surfing on a 750 West anvil in a friend's shop.

search on "mile long anvil"  

 

I've seen a couple of the big Wests' out here...

Wa-Wow!!!!!!! Amazing!!!!!!

Ray Davis of Palestine, TX with his “Mile Long” anvil. The “mile” refers to the fact that the anvil weighs 5,280 pounds (2395 kg) which is the number of feet in a mile.

Glenn...I looked it up and had seen it.

Why would one need such a large anvil?      What would they be used for?       Or are they just fashion items?

At some point you just have to accept it as ....a conversation piece...Shape would lose its meaning by purpose...I'm guessing about 750lbs would be a good cut off point 

See we are "Conversing" lol

 

But that 750 is pretty cool  so bumping up my previous weight estimate of reasonable anvil shape usage

Large anvils were used for large work---if you were forge welding an anchor weighting a ton with 16 guys striking with 32 pound sledges a heavy anvil would be great!

However the use of power hammers and presses have replaced the huge anvil and bunch of strikers process

Nowadays it's mainly for "Bragging Rights" as blacksmiths suffer terribly from anvil envy.

 

I had the chance to buy a 1,200lb anvil from a machine shop in Seward AK that was closing down. I picked up a bunch of smithing tools but passed on the anvil, I lived in a trailer court in S. Mountain View, Anchorage, basically no place to put it. I should've thought of somewhere to put it he was only asking $1,000 and I'm sure we could bargain, we did on everything else. It'd been used but was undamaged, a BIG Fisher IIRC.

Frosty The Lucky.

I wonder the estmated value on the mile long anvil...I guess whatever some anvil envist would pay for it...LOL

Dang frosty its not like you can just pick that 1200 lb thing up and toss it in the back of the ole pickup truck and haul er home...Frosty's Wrecker service to the rescue. LOL

Thanks for all the replies guys ive actually picked up on some good knowledge in this thread. 

13 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

Large anvils were used for large work---if you were forge welding an anchor weighting a ton with 16 guys striking with 32 pound sledges a heavy anvil would be great!

However the use of power hammers and presses have replaced the huge anvil and bunch of strikers process

Nowadays it's mainly for "Bragging Rights" as blacksmiths suffer terribly from anvil envy.

 

Thomas, I recently saw a Hay Budden anvil at a machinery riggers shop, it's part of his collection of stuff.

Its gotta be 36" long easy. The top was very narrow at the face. Like maybe 3.5". Really long, thin heel. I couldn't get it off the pallet where it was at, but plan on going back for a second look just to photograph it. Has a small clip on the left side of the horn facing it.

Youre the historian.. Any ideas?

I know almost nothing about anvils, but I've never seen anything like it. The protruding stud on the back of the heel is peculiar too. Dunno if it was added after the fact or not. Just an uneducated guess, maybe it was made special for someone. It's not a super heavy one either. You can tell it's quite slim for its size. Couldn't see any numbers tho, need to pull it out for a closer inspection.

I know he won't sell it, but I would like to at least get some pix and give it a good ring. I'll bring my 1.250 ball bearing with me when I go back too.  

7A749   That anvil looks like a Hay Budden Farriers anvil.  They made various sized clips.  I think this one was called the "standard clip".  They would custom forge any modification the customer wanted.  The long tail "might" be custom or could just be their pattern.  Not sure about the small stud though.

Hey, thanks a lot NJ. It sure would have been cool to have ordered one of these back in the day. I'm sure they were expensive for their time tho.

What he said, I once owned a swell horn farrier's anvil with a very narrow but quite long face, a clip and the swell horn. The face was really too narrow for my working style even though it was 199 pounds IIRC and I traded it for a Medieval looking anvil to use at SCA events.

Yeah, the horn is quite large in comparison to the body. I was gonna mention that, but you already know.

Thanks for the info. The long tail was what really got my attention. Again, I haven't seen a lot of anvils but this one certainly looked unique to me. I would love to have it just on that alone. I like different looking stuff.