Canadian War Dept broad arrow marked Shurly & Dietrich 1900 handsaw

Hi all, earlier this week I came across this Shurly & Dietrich model 1900 26" skew backed handsaw. The plate looked reasonably sound underneath a light coating of rust but the handle had a coating of blue from someone's over zealous spraying operations.
Scraping the blade with a razor blade then cleaning with autosol revealed a nice clear etch. Whilst gently scraping the paint from the handle I noticed a very faint arrow just beneath the medallion. It was soon clear to me that this was a Canadian war dept marking. There is also a strange mark on the heel of the saw where the PPI is usually stamped, it looks like 'C 12' though I can't be sure. The saw is 6PPI or 5 1/2 TPI ( not sure what convention is in use in Canada)
There was a heavy Canadian presence in my part of the country during both wars which probably accounts for how this saw ended up here. I'm aware that the company became Shurly Dietrich and Atkins in 1931 but was this change reflected on the medallions? I'd be interested to know the age of the saw to have a better idea of which war resulted in it being left/pilfered/sold here.

 

Shurly & Dietrich's 1900 saw was introduced sometime between 1902 and 1914 and had quite a long production life.
After the merger with Atkins, saws were marked "Shurly Dietrich Atkins" in both the blade etch and the medallions, (although they would have used up old stock first), so your saw probably dates before 1931. ( for SD and SDA medallions see http://lumberjocks.com/summerfi/blog/39861 )
Looks to me like your heel stamp was "5 1/2", with the upper part worn away, likely the original ppi for the saw (tpi would be ppi minus one)
The military may have still had old saws in equipment kits for WWII, so its not clear if this would have been locally acquired from WWI or WWII
[saws are an important military tool since Roman times, so the victors can say "I came, I saw, I conquered"]

 

I had a good piece of luck yesterday when I managed to aquire a nice "go with" for this saw.
It's a 1915 dated Canadian war dept stamped leather saw slip once issued to the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. It's got one broken strap but otherwise in fairly good order

 

Rob
That is so cool. What a great addition and a fine way to protect that Canadian saw. Seeing some of the archived pics this week for the memorials of those men who fought in the Passchendaele mud I don't think that saw slip would have protected much for very long. To have survived in that condition it may not have ventured too far to the front.
Enjoy
Joe S.