J. Taylor & Son hand saw

Hey All,

New to here but not new to saws in general. I've been working on saws for about 15 years now and have enjoyed every minute of it. I'm pretty familiar with most of the U.S.A. made saws but lack any good knowledge on English made ones. My collecting interest has always been the U.S.A. made ones but this saw caught my eye.

I have a question on an old J. Taylor & Son 26in. hand saw I just refurbished & sharpened. I purchased it on a whim on eBay a while back with a best offer that was accepted. Now I know the thing was in rough shape when I bought it, but it appeared from the open grain in the poor pictures, that it was either mahogany or rosewood. I believe this is a dark Cuban mahogany because of it's reddish appearance and not Brazilian rosewood or East Indian. The weight and aroma just isn't there for Brazilian rosewood either. The 5 screws appear to be made from iron and are somewhat crudely made.

The blade was badly rusted and even after cleaning there are very small pin prick pits left but I expected that. This saw cuts beautifully, so they didn't hurt anything after a light side dressing of the teeth. The top/bottom horns & the front side of the birds mouth had some pretty good damage on them which I repaired with some old mahogany that I had from an old level. There was also a split right through the cheek on each side that was filled with epoxy for the repair. I stained the horns, since they were a lighter mahogany to match the surrounding wood the best I could with the old wood being left alone as far as stain is concerned. One coat of dewaxed garnet shellac was applied with the rest being lacquer.

The cutting edge has a crowning breast and the blade rings with the tone of a Disston No.12. I love the main stamp with it's (PURIFIED CAST STEEL) along with the secondary one back by the handle (USE YOUR TIME WELL).

Back to my question, would this saw date from around the 1880 era and was it a premium saw? My assumption is that it was a premium saw with the mahogany handle but I'll let the English saw experts chime in on this one. I'm assuming the 11 stamped on the main etch is for the ppi or model number but I don't even know about that? This one is strange on the ppi aspect because it consistently measures 10 1 /2ppi through the whole length. I know Simon Barley is on here once in a while and would appreciate his wisdom on this along with everyone else's.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Take care,
Daryl Weir

More pics here if you're interested
http://s279.photobucket.com/user/daryl_weir/library/J Taylor and Son?sort=3&page=1

 

Hey Ray,

Thanks for the welcome!

Thanks for the info too. With some of the searching I did, I found out that J. Taylor & Son was one of the brands of Taylor Bros. I was assuming the later part of the 1800's also but wanted some clarification. Is a mahogany handle a little more unusual on British made saws (Should I say English or British never quite sure!) as they don't show up to often on American made ones? I have a few Disston No.12's with mahogany handles and a Geo. H. Bishop "Greyhound" with one.

One other thing, I thought this looked like it was "stamped or struck" and not like the typical etch I see. Am I wrong in this assumption? Was it around 1870 that the Sheffield makers started etching their saws? Is it also possible they were both striking and etching at the same time? Sorry for all the questions but that's how we learn from each other.

I realize I should eventually purchase Simon's book!

Take care,
Daryl

 

Hey Daryl
Welcome aboard. You have done some very nice stuff with saws over the years and I'm impressed with the quality of restorations. This site's search engine has all kinds of neat info on the Taylor Bros. which I think you may have perused already . Nothing that looks like this saw though. It reminds me of some of the New York, "Sing Sing" saws Mike Stemple talks about and the mahogany handles.
I would have to agree with you on the assumption that it is a stamp. I don't imagine they would have etched the plate with letters superimposed over each other like you show us with the "C" of the "cast steel" over the lamb but I may be mistaken with the procedure of doing separate etches and miss aligning everything.
Cheers
Joe S.

 

Hi Daryl,

At a risk of stating the obvious, it has the marks of a an export saw including it being tarted up to impress.

Said marks being:-

Very impressive handle fixings and a lot of them. At one stage all or most the fixings may have been label screws of one type or another a la your ID icon on this site. But these have a bit of lateral thinking attached to them in that they are novel re their size, but still very impressive. (Assuming that they are original).

A verbose stamp telling the buyer that it is not only spring quality but that the steel is purified cast to boot. (Very likely an impressive but meaningless phrase.) I love the font that "Sheffield" is in with the ornate "S" and the "Use your time well" is a nice addition as well.

I think that mahogany handles on English/British production saws are hens teeth rare. Again, a wood designed to impress, especially if it is Cuban Mahogany

A lovely saw with a restoration to match

Fred

BSSM does not have a mark quite like yours and so I will leave the dating proper to Simon, but I would say that, stylistically re the handle you would be about right with a date of 1880.

Edit.

I have just found this saw on Ebay. It looks like your handle fixings are original and the mark is remarkably similar to yours.

 

Thank you gentlemen, for the information thus far!

Fred - that back saw is most likely a definite time line match with my full size hand saw, great find on eBay. I must have missed that originally as I look at most of the saws that go through there. He makes the statement that the handle could be rosewood, which is originally what I thought mine might be. After I had given it a good soaking in lacquer thinner to clean the rest of the old finish off, I changed my mind about rosewood. If I could have saved the old finish I would have but there just wasn't that much of it left. When I did the horn & birds mouth repairs, the true original color of the wood really stood out.

Take care,
Daryl

 

Taylor Brothers continue to astonish me. Their productivity was colossal, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn (but I don't think we ever will) that they made as many saws as Spear & Jackson, and in far more product lines. Variations were their speciality - at least 22 different named product brands, and lots of variations within them. And this phrase Purified Cast steel is pure marketing department stuff; I have seen that other phrase "Use your time well" on one of theirs, and also on an export model, which I suspect this one was. Sheffield makers' catalogues specified fancy timbers to order. amongst them mahogany, although I would put the percentage of all non-beech timbers on surviving saws at about 0.1 or less. I've seen two saws with boxwood handles, the occasional one with rosewood or ebony, but never one with zebrawood - all of which are in one of the catalogues (my databases are unavailable to me tonight, so can't say definitely which).
The firm was using the Gothic type face for the word Sheffield as early as 1850, and several firms used raised screws like these (nickel plated sometimes) for their "specials" that they exhibited in the 1851 Exhibition.
All in all the Taylors saw makers in the sky would be very happy to see this kind of restoration work on one of their best ones.

 

Thanks for the reply Simon!

I too hope the individuals that made all of these old saws would be pleased with me saving these old gems from complete obliteration. The old phrase, "They don't make em like they used to" really applies to the old "Hand" saws. Back saws are a different animal and newer versions are being made that compare quite well, if not better in some instances than the vintage versions. However, I'm still drawn to the warmth of the old ones and that will probably never change.

Well if you believe that only about 0.1% or less have survived on the non-beech handled saws, I believe my eye caught a diamond in the rough on this one. Could my saw have been made a little earlier than the 1880's with that type of strike/stamp?

I see many people referring to the back of the saw as the heel and the front as the toe but I've always referred to the back as the butt and the front as the point. I'm only saying this because of the old publications I have. All of that was actually leading to another question I was going to ask about the butt end of my saw. How long did the British manufacturers continue to make this feature straight and angled back down to the tooth line? I know Disston stopped doing this right after the H. Disston & Son era by the examples I have, so about 1871, and started going with a lesser length straight feature combined with a larger radius to the tooth line.

Take care,
Daryl

 

Daryl,
What a beautiful restoration you did on the J. Taylor & Son! I'm not able to answer any of your questions about it but it is really beautiful. Also, what beauties occupy your saw till in the background! They appear to be Disston #12's and old ones at that! Thank you for sharing.
Brian

 

Hi Daryl,

I haven't answered before as I do not know a definitive answer. A curved heel or butt to a saw is one of the things that excludes most saws from me looking further at them as, if they are English, they are normally way too late for me to want to collect.

So I don't take much notice of them and any possible date that they may be. All that I will say is that generally speaking I, would suspect that such saws would be post 1918 in date.

There will almost certainly be exceptions to this, but I don't know of any.

Inconclusive and unsatisfactory , I know but I hope that it is a pointer.

Fred

 

Thinking a bit more about the date, I've got myself thoroughly confused. At first I'd been inclined to go for maybe the 1870s, mainly on the grounds of the several words in script letters, but then I went to my entire collection of this firm's saws, and find that they were still using very much the same lettering (etched by that time) on some of their saws in maybe 1950. The handle shape is consistent with 1880-1900, I'd say.
As for the shape of the heel (I use local Sheffield wording, which has heel and toe for the two ends), the curved US type of heel is a post 1875 fashion, I think, and was used on Sheffield saws soon after that date, with the let-in handle that goes with it; in general the straight heel end is a sign either of earliness, or cheapness, as it was quicker to make than anything curved, although once curved shears became widely used, even the cheapest saws could sometimes show a bit of curve (I'm looking here at the 1915 S&J catalogue that is in The Handsaw Catalog Collection).
This Taylor bros saw has such a straight down heel and is so obviously not a cheap one that I would plump for 1880, but I wouldn't put much on a bet if I was forced to. Maybe this picture, which is a page from their catalogue of c1890 helps to show why I'm confused - such a multiplicity of shapes and designs. You have to bear in mind that some of the engravings may be considerably older than 1890, and are simply being reused (leading to more confusion).
If the picture is big enough to read, it can be seen that special timbers were also available to order.

Wot no picture?? Try again

 

Wrote a longish reply which has somehow managed to delete itself and I haven't the energy to do it all over again

In summary I think this is a saw of maybe 1880 or so; the picture, which is from the firm's catalogue of c1890 maybe helps a bit.

 

no picture, try again... View attachment 2824

 

Hey Brian,

Thank you for the compliment!

Very good eye on the till. Yes, the hand saws are all Disston No.12's with a few that have the somewhat conical shaped screws and nuts along with the steel washers. I know there's a lot of hype on the No.12 but some of it is actually deserved. After sharpening and using many premium saws from other manufacturers, it's still my personal favorite.

Take care,
Daryl

 

Thank you Simon for all of the information, it's appreciated!

Some saws just tend to be stinkers when it comes to actually dating them. It still looks like my saw will remain in the 1880 to 1890 era most likely. That's fine by me as I still think it's a lovely design. I wish you picture attachment was able to show up for me to take a look at but alas and error message pops up instead.

Take care,
Daryl