Hello all, This is another saw marked C and M and dated (1905 or 1903), and yet a third separate make. The other two appeared in the Atkins topic and are respectively Erik's Atkins and Sons ( North American and reply no.6) and a saw on Ebay which was a Taylor Bros. ( British and reply no.15). This saw makes it even more of a mystery as the company was in business from at least 1865 (Erik's saw) to 1905 and so it must have been quite a substantial company to last that long, but I can find no definite trace of it. There are a number of C&M's on Google, but apart from a couple of North American railroads, no real candidates, and with there being two saws in the U.K. compared to one in America, this may well rule them out. I did think of a shipping line as this may explain the presence of the saw in N. America, but again can find no C and M line. So are we back to a supplier? I do not know and once again, does anyone have any idea as to their identity? Now to the saw. HSMOB has Sanderson Bros and Co. Ltd. 1891 to 1901 and so does this extend the firm by 4 (or 2) years or was the C & M impressed later. It looks like Sanderson Bros. became Sanderson and Newbould from 1901 to 1960 and if this inference from HSMOB is valid it may well be that the C&M was a later stamp. The saw is in poor condition with a bit of bad corrosion (removed by me) at the tip of the blade and quite bad patches on the reverse, both on the steel and the back. But the interest here is with the C&M and not necessarily the saw. Fred
Hi Fred, Nothing quite like a mystery to get the imagination going. I wonder if the clue might be the fact that the C&M mark appears in conjunction with a date? Why would you want to stamp a saw with a date? Some kind of inventory control perhaps. It 's the sort of thing that a government bureaucracy might use... perhaps we are looking for a government department in some country? Regards Ray
Hi Fred, Just another wild probably inaccurate assertion, I looked up abbreviations here... http://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/c-m And I notice that "C&M" is a British Military abbreviation for "Care and Maintenance" I wonder if that's the connection? Regards Ray
Another C & M This abbreviation has puzzled some of the greatest minds, and including some of the least... mine, that is. It appears on tools other than saws, and from the 1860s to pre-1910, mostly on saws, mostly on Sanderson Bros. After that, we're all guessing, and it has appeared, without a solution, in the newsletter of the Tools and Trades Hist Soc. My impression is that the marks were all applied at the same time, ie when it was made. Yours, puzzledly