I have come across a very old anvil near me for sale. It has a pritchel hole near the table at the horn end. I think at some stage the heel, hardy hole and original pritchel hole got broken off. Does anyone know if any anvils were originally made with the pritchel hole near the horn end? Only reason I'm interested in it is that it looks really old.

The pritchel hole on my Chinese-made Amazon anvil is in the horn right by the flat part.  From what someone else posted here recently, apparently they started copying an Italian anvil design, even putting the Italian word for "steel" on the side.

I'd love to upgrade my anvil soon.  It was fine in the beginning, but I'm starting to find its limitations.

It isn't common but not unusual either. If you post a picture we'll have a better chance of rendering a good opinion.

Frosty The Lucky.

I haven't seen it in person yet, sorry about the quality of the screen grab of the seller's photo.

Tat certainly is an oldy Keith! The uneven line of the heel end sure looks like it was broken off. 

If you look at it in person look for a hole in the far side of the anvil under the pritchel hole so slugs can fall through. Also look closely for the seam where the HC face was welded to the anvil body, it'll probably be most visible where the heel broke or in the big chip out of the far edge.

When makers started putting pritchel holes in anvils is almost too recent to be an antique and in this condition it isn't a factor at all. Even if you applied electrolysis it is so pitted you'd have trouble finding someplace on it to work. 

If I were to offer anything on it I'd offer maybe 75% of scrap price because I'd have to haul it to the scrapper.

Frosty The Lucky.

That is an old one to have a face that wide. That very much looks like an older William Foster with the heel broken off. I don't know that it's a William Foster, but at the time they would have been shaped like that, it was the third most common import in the US, and they were highly prone to failures at the horn and heel. Couldn't say how many made it to Ireland, but I'm betting more than this side of the waters.

My first real anvil, and for that matter, still my favorite anvil, is a very similar Foster from 1816 that I picked up years ago for $75 because it was broken. Mine's missing the heel too, so the hardy is gone, but I love it for the wide face and the fantastic rebound. Also, with that wide of a face, it might be old enough to have been made without a pritchel hole, which means it might have been modified by a prior owner to add one. They mostly started being made with pritchels in about the 1820s.

It does look to be in pretty rough shape, but I'd consider it, but then I'd gladly start an old folks' home for anvils. It might surprise everyone and clean up pretty and be usable. Mine was, but I wouldn't pay anything remotely like full price. I'd never haul one to the scrapper though. I'm too sentimental to do it, I'd feel like I was clubbing a baby seal, but if nothing else, that's 140 lbs or so of wrought iron if you can bear to cut it up. It's rare as hen's teeth where I'm at and I mostly find it in old anchor chains and the like if I can find it at all.

I wasn't suggesting he haul it to the scrapper, it was s suggestion of an offering price and bargaining argument. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Ah. It didn't feel like you. I think I fell into a grammatical ambiguity. Mea culpa maxima.

I do wonder if he couldn't save it though, if the price is right. Could use it as a floor anvil for upsetting if nothing else. The pitting is iffy, but I've got at least one that looked almost that bad when I picked it up. I'd worry more about the big hunk out of the one side or having a delam there or near the ex-heel. Dunno, got a pretty bad case of the "but I want to save them all!"s.

Yeah, I get to rambling and I can make ambiguously grammatical maze pit traps. 

The pitting is IFFY?! Even after electrolysis it looks like a substantial % of the face is gone. The pitting looks line a more serious issue than the broken heal let alone the chip. 

How long has the ad been up? Even okay anvils don't last long online even if FIF isn't in production anymore. There was a decent 170lb Trenton on Chraigslist here a month ago asking $2,000 and it was gone in 3 days after it was bid up to $2,200. Inquiries continued for another week before the ad was closed.

Were I to bid on the anvil in question I'd lowball it so hard he'd offer gas money to haul it off.

If I were bitten by the collector bug I MIGHT want to display it but bringing it back to working condition would pretty much kill any antique or even brand. 

You might ask Josh what you call the obsessive collector. I think he's rescued almost at least one of every Fisher Norris anvil made plus molds, machinery, etc. and opened a museum. He used to post here but I haven't seen him in a while.

Frosty The Lucky.