Hi. I picked up The Bug and bought few interesting saws and two were delivered today. I am quite excited... One is this Hopkinson, London, it has 15 1/2" plate which is well preserved, straight and still quite sharp (few teeth are broken, though). I hope I'm not to far off dating this saw thinking it's from 1830-40s, even though the entry for Hopkinson Family in the Simon's book has a similar makers mark from 1850 or even 1870. The mark on this saw is only 17mm though. The handle and brass fixtures looks earlier than 1850s to me. It was filed off a little at the bottom to provide more clearance for the plate. I would appreciate if you, guys, will post your thoughts.
Hi, This is not an easy one. You have two saw screws on a brass back. This should put it as a quality saw in its day, and an early -ish one which would not go amiss in the 1830's. Neither would the handle necessarily be a stranger to this date. But if you go to page 92 of BSSM and look at the 4th handle down in the left-hand column you will see that it is almost the twin of yours. It is dated to around 1860, and your stamp, to my indiscriminating eye could be, as you say either 1850 or 1870 - ish. All these three tend to point to the middle of the century. The solace that you can take from this is that there are no general handle patterns in BSSM for between 1830 and 1860 and so there is no indication as to whether your handle and stamp could be pushed back in time from the 1850's/60's to the 1840's. Much as I would like it to be 1830's, I don't think that it could be pushed back this far without some very firm supporting evidence. It would be interesting to see a picture of the end result when you have finished working on it. Fred
Oh, Fred Thank you very much for your invaluable input, as always. The problem with the pictures of saw handles in BSSM is that they are quite small and one cannot see enough details apart from general shape an position of the fasteners. Looking closely at those pictures, the handle on this Hopkinson looks more like the one dated 1820, even though picture shows a London pattern handle. The boss on my saw is a bit wider and rounder. The handle itself is quite delicate. The brass back has slight taper. Even though I did not plan to do anything with this saw, I guess, I can take one of the bolts out and check the shape and size of the shaft. This might provide a further help dating this saw. Another little clue the position of the stamp which is not centred, letters are very small and pressed at the lower part of the back. I also a bit puzzled by the size of the plate — 15 1/2 inches. I guess the saw makers in olden days did not follow set standards?.. S
Hi, I think that one of the major problems with old saws in the absence of documentary evidence is that there were general conventions or fashions at any one time that makers could adhere to, or ignore at will. Such as plate size and handle shape. Handle shape is particularly a minefield to enter into. If you look at just the five handles on p.92 from the ascribed dates of 1820 to 1860, there are so many similarities, yet also subtle and not so subtle differences between them. In order to get a reasonably accurate date from your handle, you would need a lot of reliably dated Hopkinson saws/handles to look at. And I suspect that they don't exist, at least not on any easily searchable database. The nearest thing to it would probably be to review all the "sold" Hopkinsons registered on something like Worthpoint, but it would be expensive and the datings (if provided) would not be reliable. I find that the not knowing is all part of the fun. As for stamps and placings, I accept that a small stamp can be an early stamp and that the more asymmetrically placed it is (normally to the rear) can also be a sign of an early stamp. The same goes for a stamp low on the back. I am not so sure, however, that your stamp manages to reach any of the extremes in these categories necessary to put it back into the 1830's. And, of course you also get large stamps placed all over the place in the 1830's as well, or any permutation of anything that I have mentioned. In other words, I shall finish this as I started my first post. This is not an easy one. Fred
Thanks, Fred You have more knowledge and do a lot of research and I'm happy with your conclusion. This is a nice saw and fairly rare, I guess, and I am happy to have it. I will do some research on Hopkinson once we are back from hols. S.