billjustbill
Bronze Member
This past weekend had it's local monthly flea market, where I found a large, 5ft.+ Disston "ICE Saw", but not before going to a neighborhood wide garage sale from 8:00 to 2:00 just a mile away. There, I found treasure of a different kind; a old worn but functional grade anvil.
The seller's home look like any other in that neighborhood. When I asked about old tools, he said he had his father-in-law's old anvil. He voiced a rather firm statement that he thought it weighed about 125lbs and wanted $1 a pound.... I quickly said, "Okay, can I look at it?!"
Worn and rusty, I paid him his asking price and told him I had to go get my two-wheel dolly and my pickup, so I'd be back later in the afternoon. Old anvils are hard to find. They usually sell for a minimum of $2-$3 a pound for this worn-but solid quality, not because of scrap prices, but collectors buy them by the maker and by the weight.
Coming back from the flea market about 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, it took me, the older seller, and his "younger than both of us" neighbor to get it up high enough to get it onto some padded moving blankets and into the pickup bed. It was the heaviest 125 pounds I've ever lifted.... Scooting something this heavy across the pickup bed would peal away the spray-on lining as quick as pealing an orange.... the moving blankets came from a last month garage sale's "Free Box"...
When I got it back home, I scraped away some of the surface rust (it was actually still wet from the rains because its home was sitting outside his little workshop on top of a large cross section of old telephone pole). I wiped it down with a wet section of the padded blanket. I re-wet one side. There was something familiar about the markings and letters appearing out from under the rust. There was enough of the same series of alphabet letters to show up when I knew I had seen these markings before. Years after his passing, I brought home and began scraping rust and old paint from my Grandfather then Dad's old broken anvil I banged on as a kid! The anvil company's name is actually "Mouse Hole Forge". In its day, a very well known anvil maker outside of Sheffield, England. This newest find had the same markings! Way back in history, England's stamping system was measured in "Stone Weights". Stamped on one of this anvil's sides were these
LARGE numbers: "2 - 0 - 22"
In our present day weights, it says when it left the foundry in England, it weighed 246 lbs... I'm still working on its age.
With all the COVID issues, and my wife's knee surgeries and then lower back injections, all with multiple rehabs, these adventures are good for morale and help keep the economy's worries and all that's coming with it in a little more of a balanced outlook...
The Rest of the Story....
The adventures began on a Thursday before the weekend sales usually begin, two weeks ago. Here are pics of the Sterling silverware I found for $10 at a professional company's estate sale... There are 30 silverware pieces for six place settings with 5 pieces per place. You usually don't find Sterling with just six place setting, nor with the long handle tea spoons. The knife handles are hollow, but the stainless steel blade tangs are inside the silver handles that are filled with an inert material. Only the Sterling shell contains a conservative estimate of 23 grams of silver each, but it's a much thicker silver than the thin "Weighted Sterling" shells found on candlestick pieces usually filled with plaster.
At a garage sale, my wife and I both go through baggies of old jewelry when we see some. She looks for the old 50's rhinestone costume jewelry and I look for her while I look for sterling and gold. We were early and saw that most each bag was $1. So, for about $5 worth of baggies mixed in with what she bought, there was 9.9 grams of 14kt gold jewelry. When refined, it's worth $330. Then, the $10 bag of Sterling tableware weighed 31 Troy ozs. of Sterling has 29 Troy oz. of refined .999 pure silver. Worth is about $750. This kind of hobby" pays for the weekly gasoline to go to them, enough to buy an old anvil and an ice saw I wouldn't normally buy for myself, and still have 'some' left over.
The adrenaline rush is just about priceless... ;>)
The seller's home look like any other in that neighborhood. When I asked about old tools, he said he had his father-in-law's old anvil. He voiced a rather firm statement that he thought it weighed about 125lbs and wanted $1 a pound.... I quickly said, "Okay, can I look at it?!"
Worn and rusty, I paid him his asking price and told him I had to go get my two-wheel dolly and my pickup, so I'd be back later in the afternoon. Old anvils are hard to find. They usually sell for a minimum of $2-$3 a pound for this worn-but solid quality, not because of scrap prices, but collectors buy them by the maker and by the weight.
Coming back from the flea market about 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, it took me, the older seller, and his "younger than both of us" neighbor to get it up high enough to get it onto some padded moving blankets and into the pickup bed. It was the heaviest 125 pounds I've ever lifted.... Scooting something this heavy across the pickup bed would peal away the spray-on lining as quick as pealing an orange.... the moving blankets came from a last month garage sale's "Free Box"...
When I got it back home, I scraped away some of the surface rust (it was actually still wet from the rains because its home was sitting outside his little workshop on top of a large cross section of old telephone pole). I wiped it down with a wet section of the padded blanket. I re-wet one side. There was something familiar about the markings and letters appearing out from under the rust. There was enough of the same series of alphabet letters to show up when I knew I had seen these markings before. Years after his passing, I brought home and began scraping rust and old paint from my Grandfather then Dad's old broken anvil I banged on as a kid! The anvil company's name is actually "Mouse Hole Forge". In its day, a very well known anvil maker outside of Sheffield, England. This newest find had the same markings! Way back in history, England's stamping system was measured in "Stone Weights". Stamped on one of this anvil's sides were these
LARGE numbers: "2 - 0 - 22"
In our present day weights, it says when it left the foundry in England, it weighed 246 lbs... I'm still working on its age.
With all the COVID issues, and my wife's knee surgeries and then lower back injections, all with multiple rehabs, these adventures are good for morale and help keep the economy's worries and all that's coming with it in a little more of a balanced outlook...
The Rest of the Story....
The adventures began on a Thursday before the weekend sales usually begin, two weeks ago. Here are pics of the Sterling silverware I found for $10 at a professional company's estate sale... There are 30 silverware pieces for six place settings with 5 pieces per place. You usually don't find Sterling with just six place setting, nor with the long handle tea spoons. The knife handles are hollow, but the stainless steel blade tangs are inside the silver handles that are filled with an inert material. Only the Sterling shell contains a conservative estimate of 23 grams of silver each, but it's a much thicker silver than the thin "Weighted Sterling" shells found on candlestick pieces usually filled with plaster.
At a garage sale, my wife and I both go through baggies of old jewelry when we see some. She looks for the old 50's rhinestone costume jewelry and I look for her while I look for sterling and gold. We were early and saw that most each bag was $1. So, for about $5 worth of baggies mixed in with what she bought, there was 9.9 grams of 14kt gold jewelry. When refined, it's worth $330. Then, the $10 bag of Sterling tableware weighed 31 Troy ozs. of Sterling has 29 Troy oz. of refined .999 pure silver. Worth is about $750. This kind of hobby" pays for the weekly gasoline to go to them, enough to buy an old anvil and an ice saw I wouldn't normally buy for myself, and still have 'some' left over.
The adrenaline rush is just about priceless... ;>)
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