This anvil sold ($2,100) in central PA -- 486lbs, no visible markings except a serial (?) number on the RF foot.  

Serial number on the right is common for Trenton, shapes looks right too. I'd guess the markings on the side were there, just covered by the paint/rust/patina.

The serial number picture looks upside down. 78934? Is the number on the left?  Hay Budden?

 

I had the same question as RobS,  looks to be on the left when the picture is rotated so the numbers are correctly oriented.

If the horn was a critter’s face and the heel was the back of its head and described as a biologist or MD would, then the serial number was on the Right Front foot.

Unfortunately it's an anvil not an animal and so right and left are considered looking towards the horn from in front of the horn.

So perhaps a HB with a serial to the left.

Curious, what's the source for that convention? 

I usually hear of near side, far side. But that's still relative to the smith, and let's not go on another round of which way the left handed smith puts the horn. 

I'm super interested, knowing that there are catalogs and books that have been written that I've not read, in who came up with the orientation of taking right and left from facing the horn. 

I would blame blueprint drawings, but I'd tend to expect a horn facing left as the "front view" in a third projection drawing, therefore making the "left side" looking at it from facing the horn.

Well we done it this away for decades before it was published but "Anvils in America" written by Richard Postman, most likely the preeminent anvil expert in the USA, uses that convention, mentioning in the discussion on Trenton anvils: weight on the left and serial on the right right under a picture that clearly shows that this was looking from horn towards heel.

Also if you are standing in front of a house and looking for it's number and a friend says "it's to the right of the door"  Do you automatically assume they mean to the right if you were standing in the door looking out?  (If so do you have a long history of being a Thespian and so stage right/left is ingrained...?)

Not knowing what books you have read I can't tell you if there are some out there you haven't.

Are there a lot of folks where you are doing it the other way?  Anybody here place the numbers with respect to straddling the anvil looking towards the horn?

I like to paint one side of my anvil red and the other green so I don’t get confused.  Oh wait which one is starboard?

Starboard = right = green.

I always remember by the saying “There’s no red port left.”

A British sailor once pointed out to me that “right”, “green”, and “starboard” each have more letters than “left”, “red”, and “port” respectively. 

JHCC, don’t forget about “larboard” - it was dropped for “port”.   I’ve read (somewhere in the past) that one reason for the change was that “starboard” and “larboard” could get misheard in the heat of battle.  

Now is that looking toward the bow or towards the stern?....  I mainly worry about "freeboard" and "Out cutlasses and board!”

(now "Free Bird" might result in "Out cutlasses and board!”)

If the anvil is a ski boat, the horn is the bow ... if the anvil is a duck hunting punt ... the bow is the heel. 

 

But I personally would like to see more action and less auctions.

Unless you're under sail on a starboard tack, with an inbound freighter to your leeward stern, it's red right when returning. Oh bouy, that ought to get it.

On 7/7/2018 at 4:49 PM, ThomasPowers said:

Now is that looking toward the bow or towards the stern?

From the point of view of someone onboard looking forward.