I rescued this saw from the Bric-a-Brac store a month ago, where I found it rusting outside, in a bucket of saws with 4" water in the bottom of the bucket. I was attracted by the big brass "Warranted Superior" medallion and the saw seemed mostly complete (unlike the equally old Taylor Bros saw, that had a broken off saw plate, and a pin through the TB medallion, which I left for some other sucker to buy). I was hoping I could clean up the saw so that it would look as valuable as the purchase price A little bronze brush in the drill cleaned up the medallion nicely. (I like the way the unicorn casually drapes one leg over the "Dieu et Mon Droit" banner) Initial scraping and sanding the rust bloom off the middle of the blade didn't reveal any name stamp, but when the cleaning progressed towards the handle I was happy to find some lettering. It cleaned up remarkably well, showing it to be an Alfred Beckett & Sons saw, with the name stamp in the unusual position of being stamped across the saw plate instead of along the saw. Have you seen any other examples of the name stamp running across the saw ?? Part of the stamp has a crown over a circle enclosing "F&W" [my other Beckett handsaw (which has a Beckett medallion, and the blade stamp in the usual orientation along the blade) has a crown over "F&W" over "M" (see last picture)] Anyone know, or have any ideas on, what these markings signify ?? .
What a lovely medallion, beautifully preserved (and cleaned). About 1860-70?? I've seen a few examples of unusually placed marks, but never the whole thing - apprentice with spatial dyslexia? Taylors sometimes used one or two additional marks close to the handle, and so did Beardshaw. I wonder if the FW over M might signify a retailer - Fowler and Williams, say, of Montreal??
Alfred Beckett HI as regards saws with the name stamp across the blade, near the handle i recentlly sold a saw on ebay it had the word CONQUEROR underlined plus a faded trade mark ,If you held the saw handle down upright the name was about one inch up cheers pat
and I was the buyer - Conqueror was one of Jonathan Beardshaw's TMs, and the only mark on this saw that is still legible - I suspect there was once an etch which has died the death. Pic is from a nice little grafting saw that came up a few days later.
Welcome, BdBaker, to the forum. It sounds as though you have a Conqueror marked saw, but maybe like me you don't at first find the upload process completely straight forward! The earliest saw I have with a Conqueror mark is about 1880, but I don't have a documented first-use date; it would probably be possible to find, somewhere on the net and beyond my own means of excavation, the date when Beardshaw registered the TM. The mark seems to have appeared on their better quality saws is all I could say about the first question, but with a company that had a large output like this one, my experience is that anything could happen.