This is my first posting on this forum. I've heard great things about the folks here, so I'm hoping that you can help me locate additional information on this saw. I recently bought a neat old 20" 9tpi panel saw. I've never bought an antique saw before, but this one just had a look of quality about it so I picked it up. A very light cleaning revealed an etching that says "J. Taylor and Son", "Adelaide Works", and "Sheffield" in a ribbon. Above that is an eagle perched on what looks to be a bundle of lances with banners and possibly a ship or a boat. Under the handle is a large stamped "P". The handle has a couple of cracks running through the center, though it should be easily fixable. The nuts are steel. There is no medallion. I checked the all-knowing Google and found several links for J. Taylor saws, but most of them had a lamb in the logo and the maker's name stamped into the plate. None of them were etched. In fact, I cannot find any references to a Taylor saw with an etching. All show a stamp, either on the plate or on the spine. What did I find? Any idea when it was made?
Hi, Welcome to the site. There is a substantial ramble about Taylor (Taylor Bros), and others if you follow this http://www.backsaw.net/index.php?option=com_jfusion&Itemid=58&jfile=showthread.php&t=152 it may help, or then again perhaps not. Perhaps Kiwi's list of Taylor Brothers brands will be the most helpful. J Taylor and Sons is definitely a mark of Taylor brothers, but the etch is new to me although that should not be taken to have too much significance. The domed bolts, to me put it after the turn of the century/WW1 but the handle and etch are perhaps not that much help in dating as they could have been done over such a long time period. What we really want is someone with the appropriate Taylor Bros. catalogue. I have an etched Taylor Bros. "Mowbray" saw but with the paschal lamb and which I always assumed was post 1920/30's. But again that is not of much help with yours. If Simon has an image of the etch he will probably know all about it, and if he doesn't then I am sure he will find out. Lets hope that he reads this. Fred
Nice saw ! I really like the old Taylor Bros elaborate etches, made deep enough to last a century or more. More etch designs are shown on the Talor Bros registered brands listing, noted in Fred's reference. I haven't seen your etch before, but it looks a bit "american" with its eagle and flag with stripes (and stars?), and was possibly made for the US market. [Taylor Bros "J Taylor & Son" saws, made for the export trade, include the "american railway" etch. pics attached] I seem to recall that the first iron dome screws were used on high end saws, as improvements over the breakable brass splitnuts (spanner nuts), so your saw may be as early as 1870ish ...or from the later 1900ish "cheaper steel screw" era. (The wild guessing on handsaw heritage is part of the fun of collecting).
info needed onJ Taylor saw Nice start to your postings, enjuneer! I think this is one of the large range of optional etches which Taylors could put on their saws, according to the only comprehensive catalogue of the period (1890 -ish). Unfortunately I'm currently away from my database of catalogues for the next couple of weeks (if anyone is envying me being in California for Christmas, let me tell you that it has been raining all day, and yesterday, hard enough to make any inhabitant of Manchester feel thoroughly at home) but will endeavour to see if your etch is illustrated. As for date, I think it can probably be put back to 1890 or perhaps a bit earlier - dating is very rarely an exact exercise - as this type of saw screw (brass or iron) started to be copied in Sheffield quite soon after Disston introduced his big design changes of the mid 1870s. Taylor Brothers had the largest range of "different" saws of any British maker in the period around 1860-1914. They had a large number of trade marks and brands:Advance; Lamb&flag+picture; the guinea for the million+picture;J.Taylor & Son; J&I Taylor; Taylor; Smithson; Melvin; Rolyat; Adelaide; circular saw (picture); Arnold;Tangonia; Johnson; Justice; The Queen;Mowbray;J Watson & Co; James Brothers;Willow; Crown;International; Donnybrook;Audus;and others! Many of these would be indistinguishable in quality, I'm sure, and several of them have not to my knowledge been recorded as extant. They would have been used to market saws in different areas (the Donnybrook one has a distinctly Irish look to it). More is known about their productivity in the second half of the 19th century than about any of their competitors,because the records of the printing firm that made etching transfers for them has survived in the Archives section of Sheffield’s Libraries; samples of many of these transfers, as well as labels from the boxes of tools, are preserved in the Hawley Tool Collection. These documents show that Taylors were buying tens of thousands of transfers every year, each transfer used once, not only for marking their own make of saw, but also for factoring for other Sheffield saw-making firms (Thomas Firth, Alfred Beckett, Drabble & Sanderson, Marshes & Shepherd, John Kenyon and many others), as well as other English firms like Clarke of Exeter and Cross of Cardiff, and scores of dealers in Russia,South and North America, the Caribbean, Australia, India and the Far East. Although it is logical to conclude that the number of surviving saws is the best indicator of the original levels of production [Is it? Answers would be appreciated] I sometimes wonder if Taylors were actually the biggest producers of saws in Sheffield in the second half of the 19th century, even though Spears and W Tyzack, Sons and Turner items are more commonly found for sale. (that's enough, even for a wet Sunday afternoon with nothing else to do!)
I. Taylor, not J. Taylor Hi Guys, Thanks for the great information! With a little bit of careful polishing and examination under a magnifier, I determined that the maker was "I. Taylor and Son", not J. Taylor as I had originally thought. I's and J's were sometimes used interchangeably in the "old days", so would this be significant in determining its heritage? Also, I am a bit of an amateur historian on the American Civil War and in reviewing some of the motifs used during this period of history, I realized that the etching of the eagle with crossed lances is strikingly similar to some of the Civil War era. Perhaps this may lend support to the 1870 date that Kiwi tossed out. This is the first old saw that I have purchased and it has been a lot of fun so far in learning more about it and the handsaw industry in general. Thanks, Bob 'enjuneer'
Info needed on J Taylor saw Back home and photos to hand: but I can't find an illustration of Bob's example, even though there are well over 50 different choices in the two Taylor Brothers catalogues of c1890. This firm's amazingly prolific output is confirmed, I think! Looking again at the mark at maximum magnification, I do think that it is J Taylor and not I Taylor - partly because in all the illustrations there is no example of the latter. The caption for one of their saws (their rule, or combination) saw reads "Etched 'Taylor Brothers' 'Taylor & Son' or 'Adelaide Saw Works' according to quality" and I'm sure they also would have used J Taylor as a mark on another quality - but there are no prices in the catalogues to indicate which quality was which. At a guess (familiar territory, eh!?) I'd suggest they had a line of marks for saws exported to N America.