Hey, new here! This Kenyon saw is from a small collection of old hand tools I inherited from my grandfather a little while back. Before he owned it, it belonged to his uncle, who was a cabinet maker around Rochester, New York. As you can see from the pictures, the handle is marked "1812," and the steel is stamped "KENYON SYKES AND CO.," which I understand is one of a number of marks Kenyon used. If anyone can tell me any more about it, I'd very much appreciate it. Otherwise, enjoy the pictures! Thanks, Nikolas
Hi Nikolas, A beautiful saw. I really like those simple marks, low on the back. Does it have "cast(dot)steel" on it anywhere? I don't know if I can help you as much as you have helped me, but I can tell you what HSMOB says and that this incarnation of Kenyon existed from 1814 to 1817 and so you are correcting, however mildly this source by a couple of years. I was going to post today about a Kenyon that was on Ebay and went for the very reasonable sum of GBP131. (And -no- I didn't get it, or even bid on it). I was going to ask the assembled worthies for a guestimate date for it, especially re the handle shape. A cross between an egg shaped boss and the more conventional boss. I was going to WAG it as late 1790's to 1810 -ish, but your handle is very similar and has a date of 1812. So that has helped a lot - that is if you ignore how different the marks are. But irrespective of marks, your saw gives at least one firm date for this style of handle and which has to be a plus in anyone's book. Here are the pics. Fred
1812 Kenyon This looks very much like a saw of the dates Fred suggests, although the only trouble with dated saws is that the date can be put on at any time... The maker's marks look as though they have been put on with two separate punches, the word Kenyon being of exactly the same pattern (note especially the initial K) as on the one Fred shows, and others that have been noted. Richard Arnold's recent Kenyon (only) has been kindly loaned to us at the Hawley Tool Collection, and I had a big argument with a certain person as to its date - I guessed 1770-1780 and was quite rightly challenged as to how I know. It certainly helps to have that style of ampersand which is naturally missing when there's only one man, and also the cast dot steel words - although those two dating features run out so much later (c1830) that they aren't any use here. As far as I can make out, Kenyon (and there were two of them, John and James, to add to the confusion) had several different partnerships in his first 50 years, and Sykes was (if it was the same person) in and out of the Kenyon premises between 1786 and 1823. I think that some saws were marked with whatever punch came to hand, and that different wordings were used by the same partnerships at different times - gosh, they really knew they were going to tease us!