Hey there, first post in here. I have been interested in blacksmithing for almost as long as I have known that you can make stuff out of metal. So I decided to finally go to some weekend courses and felt completely in love with it.

I commented this to some family members and one of them send me and add in a second hand buying page thingy about an anvil that looked in decent enough shape. By the general shape and the lip in the base of the anvil I think is an old Peter Wright which made me very excited. The only problem is the damage on the face which doesn't seem to have any other type of big damage/delamination all the way around.

Eventually, I decided to contact the seller, the main problem now was that I live in an Island in the middle of the Atlantic and that anvil is in mainland Spain. So I did my best and contacted a couple of family friends that lived nearby taught them how to test rebound and made them take over 20 pictures and a video showing me both the rebound and the sound of a hammer striking the face ( The magic of technology  ). Both the rebound and the sound seemed good so I gave the green flag to buy it.

Cost me 650€ or around 700 good old dollars, the weight is in the 265-is pounds or 120 kilos for EU smiths as far as we know

Still haven't managed to found any markings in the anvil so I am not sure about the maker, any ideas? also, how do you all good people feel about the damage in the face?

 

 

Looks like where the plates that make up the face were welded and the seam was a bit more prone to wear.  If the bounce and ring are good I wouldn't bother about that at all! 

Need to have a picture of the base as one of the other brands that used the lip can sometimes be identified by the base indent.

Also how many handling holes and where are they located?

 

Ok here are a few more pictures showing the base a bit better, also handling holes 4 as far as I can tell, 2 right at the base and another beneath the horn and at the throat I think is called.

I think the images explain it better than me anyway  .

 

        

And the underside?

Unfortunately, the friends in mainland Spain store it away until the shipping company comes to ship it to me.

As soon as the shipping company goes to pick it up I will make sure that they take a picture of the underside and will post it here immediately.

But anyway thank you for your time Thomas!

My vote is Peter Wright too; no hurry if you have already bought it and are going to be using it anyway.

Like Thomas said, where the top plates were joined shouldn't be a problem, I've read where the hardened face plates were forge welded on in sections and yours has plenty of working surface over the sweet spot of the anvil.

Hey Irondragon, sorry for the delayed response, but yeah, I've been digging a bit around and found in the archives of an old forum and some youtube videos some people talking about Peter wright anvils having steel faces welded in segments in the "older" models, but anyhow as you both have said I don't think that those lines aren't a big deal, for me, it gives more character to the anvil 

Also, the anvil is going to be shipped this week and should arrive before the end of the month, so we will discover who made it soon™

Almost all older anvils of any size had their face welded up in sections; just like the older the anvil the more pieces that usually went into welding up the body.  Typical method of getting larger sized chunks of real wrought iron was to weld them up from smaller pieces. Higher carbon steels also tended to get expensive the bigger they were *fast*.

I knew that there were some anvils made of cast or wrought iron with steel face welded on top but didnt know that it was a common trend to weld the face in sections!

Thanks for the info! I will keep doing some digging in the whole anvil situation I find it quite interesting.

I can see that anvils are a world by themselves and is kind of amazing how people built tools in the old days, to be honest.

Hey, after a long wait it reached home, here is the bottom side of the anvil .

Also, customs weighted it and came out as 208 kilos (458 lb).

And the only letters I can see after a bit of scrubbing are JOHN WILL HAM or something like that.

(Here is a picture of the letters).

I'm a bit late to this party, but I can vouch from experience that the visible seams on the face plate are not an issue. My own Mousehole (aka The Undisputed King of Anvils) has visible weld lines, and they have never given me the least bit of trouble.

OK so NOT a Peter Wright.  Not a surprise too as many smaller anvil makers started out with people who learned the trade at Peter Wright or Mousehole and when they set up their own business made what they were used to making.  So a lot of "clones" exist.

I don't have AinA with me so I can't look up that one and post on it before Monday.  Anybody got a copy to hand?

Hey JHCC better late than never! I am glad to hear it, I don't think they would be a problem for me either, plenty of workspace in the face.

Also about AinA is Anvils in America right?, is it a good read? I managed to get my hands on a copy of Blacksmithing from Alex W.Bealer and I am looking for some new good books about blacksmithing  

 

Ok after some elbow grease and a bit of help from a can of paint removers I managed to get the anvil clean and showing more letters.

The John will ham still there as clear as day but just above that there are a few new findings.

Also on the other side of the waist finally some weight numbers appeared 112x4 + 2 so 450 lbs.

And at the front two V appeared, don't know if they are roman numerals or just a V.

Welp there goes everything I have found under the old paint and rust.

Thanks for the help!!

 

I consider Anvils in America a great reference book; not one to sit down and read cover to cover but one where you go to it to read up on an anvil brand you are not familiar with. (Well I did read my copy cover to cover the first time; but I read a lot of research stuff...)