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Needing help/advise value? I Indian chief leg vise


Levi Harris

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I have a leg /post vise not sure on the proper  terminology I came up with my neat barn find tearing down a barn my great granddad built before my granpa was born 1952 he said but what  we both think is odd was I found it under what was nailed down green cut oak flooring via chainsaw. It stands about  3ft jaws are  5 1/2 might be 7 soon as I relocate my tape will inform. Looked good no pitting every thing is working as should but after looking on line I noticed im missing a leaf spring between post and jaw arms. Other than that shes had a bath in Pb blaster sandblasted and a coat of glossy black  and is nice looking. Gotta love kids they where weighing stuff? Must have a better tape measure than I knew

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Welcome to IFI! If you haven't yet, please READ THIS FIRST!!!

Value is subjective and depends on a number of factors, not least of which is where you are in the world. Also, a collector might pay a premium for a particular brand, whereas a working smith just cares about condition of the screw and jaws. 

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Note:  jaw size for these vises are the width of the jaw, not the opening space between them.  From your photos, if I had to guess, I would expect the jaws to be no more than 4 1/2" wide.  Post vises have certainly increased in perceived value with the current boom in blacksmithing as a hobby, but they can still be found in that condition at sub $100 prices.  You may get more from a collector, or if the jaws are larger than I guess they are.  Provided the screw/screwbox is good, as John mentions above, a range between $50 and $150 is a fair price for a 4-4.5" vise to a "user", in my opinion.  A spring is easy for a smith to fabricate.

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  • 1 month later...

We have a blacksmith vise, it's over a 100 yrs old. I can only find a couple of markings on it. Number 1 the a circle with the letter M in side of it and the other looks like a m with some letters or numbers . We want to know what it's worth and who made it . Any help would be appreciated. I am trying to figure out how to up load picture

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On ‎9‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 6:15 AM, Cindy Sexton said:

We have a blacksmith vise, it's over a 100 yrs old. I can only find a couple of markings on it. Number 1 the a circle with the letter M in side of it and the other looks like a m with some letters or numbers . We want to know what it's worth and who made it . Any help would be appreciated. I am trying to figure out how to up load picture

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I don't recognize the markings off the top of my head but as stated above if the threads and screwbox are in good condition anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty. Depending on jaw size possibly a little more. As far as blacksmithing tools go a hundred years is not really considered old. 

Pnut

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15 hours ago, Cindy Sexton said:

We want to know what it's worth

That is also dependent upon where in the world you are located, hence the suggestion to edit your profile to show it. Right here in the Ozarks the price varies by location. In Arkansas I can find them for around $60 U.S. but just across the line in Missouri the cheapest I have found are $150 U.S. or higher. I have no idea how much they go for in the U.K. or Europe.

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The star was IRON CITY's logo.

The last one  bought was a bit beefier than that one and I paid $40. They were used by far more than blacksmiths. My last one came from a wood shop. Like I mentioned above I pay up to $10 per inch of jaw width. I have paid as little as $5, and even picked up one for free. 100 years old is not that old in smithing terms.

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As this website is on the world wide web we have over 100 countries participating; so Pnut's 50 to 150 probably means US dollars as that's his location and not pesos euros, colons, rand, etc.

Of course my location has been off by 12000 miles before. I was in Indonesia but my location was central ohio....

The major factors in price are width of jaws ands condition of screw and screwbox. Neither of which was provided.

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