Wondering if anyone has any info on saws made/made for C. Thomas - London. I received this saw recently, but haven't been able to find any info on C. Thomas here, in BSSM and a few other commonly searched sources. It hasn't been cleaned up yet, but is already quite a nice 14" brass back with a relatively unscathed beech handle. There is a Thomas and Matthews London in BSSM, but the dates are 1951-58, which I think is quite a bit later than when this saw was made. From the look of the handle, split nuts, rounded lower and upper edge on the brass back, I feel like this is from the later half of the 1800s. Just a guess though and happy to hear otherwise. So, any ideas on who C. Thomas was? Merchant perhaps, or maybe a secondary mark for a larger maker?
Kerry - Hi - thank you for clarifying the stamp. For fun I searched P.O.London Directories from 1865-1915 for "C Thomas" . . . . with no clear possibilities showing up . . . . but "LONDON" as you know was in that span also devolving into many suburban directories.
Wow, thanks very much for the searching. I didn't even realize a chandlery sold tools until I looked it up just now. I wonder if it was common for chandlers to have saws stamped with their company name. I just assumed it would be larger tool merchants, but Simon seems to indicate there may be quite a few rather unknown London merchants with stamped saws from this period. Perhaps it wasn't terribly uncommon.
Kerry - Hi - no, it's not uncommon in that sort of period . . . . . I guess my personal favourite example is a handsome 14" sash-saw stamped: . . . which external evidence (shop-leases, Mr Gregg's death & so on) likely dates to 1853-83 . . . the interest in the context of your saw was that Mr Gregg's store was not very large, & primarily known as a source of high-quality razors, so this above saw was likely ordered to be made in a small-ish consignment; and of course the delightful misspelling of "SLOANE" infers that it was stamped by the unfortunate maker, & not Mr Gregg. I asked for closer images of the stamp on your saw because the (light) stamp appeared a bit odd in its letter-spacing ('kerning'?) & I was wondering if it may have been bought by Mr Thomas unstamped.
That's a great eye you have. The kerning does look off on my saw stamp, particularly between the "N" and the "D" in LONDON. Though the missing serifs on the N and the D may make that look further apart now than when it was originally stamped. I'll have to look for other examples to see if the kerning in LONDON appears similar in any of the makers marks in BSSM.