Hello all, Just thought that I'd upload this saw, there is nothing rare or special about it, just a nice saw. Needed some work, but is now straight, still needs sharpening. 28" long but the etch is completely gone. I personally prefer the extra weight and stiffness from a straight backed saw but the handle is nice. I think it's an early D8, looking at the roundedness of the applewood handle. the later handles lost some of flowing lines.
Hi Lui, As you may have realised I am becomming rather obsessive over handles and I could not agree more with your notion of handles becoming less elegant( and probably less comfortable) as the years go by. To illustrate the point, I will put photo's of by Thumbhole D8 below. It is later than yours, the etch (with the 8 inside the D) puts it pre 1928 and the medallion puts it 1917 to 1940. At least if my reading of the Disstonian Institute website is correct. The handle is much more angular and definitely less aesthetically pleasing than yours. It is a pity that they deteriorated but I am presuming that cost was the overriding factor, certainly in a saw produced in the numbers that the D8 was. I cannot see your medallion properly on the photo but from what I can see, all that I think can be said about it is that it is pre-1917, but how much before that I do not know. If you go to the medallions section of disstonianinstitute.com and you have the medallion detail in front of you, then you will be able to judge much better from the examples that they have there. Fred.
Hi Fred, Your right, 1896-1917, Without an etch that's as good as it gets. What is noteable about your saw is the depth of the blade still remaining, it looks like it had little use, compared to mine. I bet it has a fair bit of extra weight as a result. This is one of only two skewed backs that I have. With reference to the handles, it might not only come down to cost, by this time Disston had pretty much bought out every other manufacturer, you could say that they didn't have to compete anymore and therefore the standards dropped. If nobody else was doing it, why go to the same effort. regards lui