Hello this is another recently acquired saw.It is a JOHNSON & CONAWAY from Philadelphia,along with the company name it is stamped spring steel warranted extra.It has what I call a blank medallion,but what I find interesting with this saw is,that it has a skewed back for its age,I thought Henry Disston was the saw maker that started using the skewed back.
Hi David, I've seen other saws, like yours ostensibly from before Henry Disston's famous chalk drawing of a skewed back hand saw introduced a new profile to saw making, that also have skewed backs. And in looking closely at them, I've always come to the conclusion that a previous owner wanted his own saw to "look like those new skewbacks" and did some grinding on their own. I can't tell for sure from your photo, but I wonder what it would look like if you were to put a straight edge along the back, from handle to toe? It appears that the two ends might line up as though they were originally connected in a perfectly straight line. Most skew back saws that I've seen do not have the top of the first few inches at the toe aligned with the top of the handle. In fact the line at the toe usually points way below the top of the handle. If we were to vote on it, I'd cast mine for this being an owner modification. It also appears that your saw may have a replacement handle, since only three screws fasten it to the blade. All the full sized J & C saws I've seen have four screws and considerably more shapely handles. However, there doesn't seem to be any pentimento of the shape of a previous handle on the blade so, if it is a replacement it sure would have been done a long time ago. David
Agree with David that the "skew" of this back is just not quite right. We have in the Hawley Collection what one might call a false skew back Spear&Jackson number 82, which came out of the factory as a straight back and met a man with a grinding machine of some sort who converted it. I can't provide a picture, but it similarly stands out as plain wrong. Simon