Hello all, In the not very clear photograph of this saw on Ebay (from America), I thought that the first letter was an I, but was by far from certain. I am still not certain even after cleaning the mark up and photographing it, but I am a little more sure. It looks to me that there is a little piece of embedded rust to the right of the upright of the letter at the bottom, denoting an indent in the metal that is part of the letter This is unlikely to be the curve of a J and is probably the bottom serif of an I. Should it be that it is really an "I" as an archaic "J" the saw is possibly no later than the mid 1830's There is no cast (dot) to the steel and so it is unlikely that it is much pre 1830. If it is an I, it is the first one that I have seen on a John Spear saw, as opposed to the relatively common I Hill late Howell. Anyway, see what you think. Fred Edit. I have taken two more photo's with a larger number of pixels per image and which can be enlarged. See below, the last two images in the sequence. I am pretty sure now that it is an I.
Hi Wicktor, It is possible that there is a loop of a J obscured by the rust to the bottom left-hand side of the upright, but there is definitely a piece of rust at the right hand bottom of the letter that could well be the serif of an I. I can, unfortunately, think of no way of cleaning it further without scratching the rust out, and that I am not prepared to attempt that. If anyone can think of a way of cleaning it that is no more intrusive than that which I have already done, please let me know. Acids or other corrosives are definitely out. Fred
Hi Fred Glad to hear you draw the line at corrosives and the like, no old saw is worth over cleaning for something that may or may not be revealed. I myself think it's an "I" but that's just an opinion and everyone has one of those. It's a great looking saw and a great piece of history and I'm sure will remain a great conversation and speculation piece in your collection. Enjoy..... Chris
I'm with Wiktor here, Fred. I would surmise that the mark punch had become defective with use. These very small bits of steel easily got broken off. I don't remember a Cast Steel mark that was done 'bright struck' ie faint, which is CastdotSteel. I stand to be corrected on that. But it could be about 1840, I guess. (and it's a v nice saw – congratulations)
Thank you all for the replies. This is the final go at this one. I have cleaned it up a little more with a very small diameter brush so the more of the rust has been removed. I am still not sure. What I am certain of is that it is not an extant "J". It may well be Simon's damaged stamp with the curl of the "J" broken off. But If you look at the two lines inexpertly drawn on the image you will see that the right hand side one traces the path of the top serif down to an almost identical feature at the bottom of the letter. The line to the left of this is placed just to the right of what looks like the right hand side boundary of the upright of the letter - be it I or J. It is, for me, very hard to explain what looks like a bottom serif on the bottom right hand side of the upright, were the letter to be a J. Also the bottom of the latter appears to have a flat base, whereas with a J you would expect the base to be rounded like the "O" next door. I will accept that there is a shadow at the bottom of the letter that does curl up at the left hand side but again, it is nothing like the shadow to the bottom of the O I will therefore stick to my tentative guns and say that it is far more likely to be a I than a J. Fred
I agree with you, Fred. There would be no reason to place a serif at that point in the letter "J". If you look at the bottom curve of the "S" you can see how that typeface would treat a "J". There might be a serif at the end of the curl-up on the "J", but certainly not in the middle of the stroke. I think it's definitely an "I". Which makes it very anomalous.
Thanks David, The letter can only be one of two things as far as I can see. It is either a formal decision of the company to put an I in the stamp and one which was quite quickly reversed as I have not seen one before, or it was an individual stamp maker who decided to spell it like that and the error survived. Fred