Kings and Queens crowns

Hello all,

I start this topic with some trepidation because I really don't know what I am talking about here, but I hope that someone else might and that it might also be of some practical value.

It started some 4 years ago when I was selling car bumper/grill badges at a steam fair. I had a Home Guard one with a crown on the badge and someone mentioned that it was a pity that the crown was not a King's crown, implying that it could therefore have been wartime (= more valuable) and not an Elizabeth II one.

And so the matter rested until I was looking at a saw on Ebay. See link below and scroll down the page and go to the second image. ( I cannot extract the image only). If you can get the images on the site Ray, then please do so.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380326062192&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I have a Betts and Co. backsaw (without the crowns) which I will put on here at some stage and from my own research in the on-line directories and HSMOB the date for the " and Co." company is 1849 to 1850 (-ish).

I then looked at the impressed crowns on the photo and to me they look like King's crowns. Now my understanding (which is very tenuous) of the differences between a Kings and Queens crown is that the Kings crown tends to be generally taller with a dip in the top and lobes on either side, topped off with an orb like device, at the top of which is a cross of very open design. The queens crowns tend to be squatter without the lobes and the cross is virtually a square with the cross denoted by slits cut in it.

I may be completely wrong on this so please correct me.

Anyway, if I am right about the differences then you would have a stamped cross in the reign of Victoria that denoted a King. This may be no big deal as the image on the Betts is very stylised and therefore may not be an accurate representation. But these types of crowns on saws are not part of the trade-mark (as in S and J) and if they are to imply quality or date then they should really be correct for the monarch on the throne. This then would have implications for a revised date for the "and Co" section of Betts, but I am very wary as there may be a myriad of reasons why the crown design may be incorrect.

I then looked at another saw on Ebay see the link below, I cannot get the image on here. (Go to medallion image)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170622126425&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I think that Ponds started in 1942 and the crown on the Warranted Superior label screw is definitely a Queen's crown, hopefully dating it to after 1952 and showing that the crown designs do change.

I have looked at what "Warranted Superior" label screws that I have but the detail is not sufficient to determine the nature of the crown.

As an aside, but quite a large aside, it would also be interesting to see if S and J changed the crowns on their trade mark to reflect the sex of the monarch. One S and J saw that I have looks to have a Kings Crown, but I have no others and the modern logo is a very amorphous one albeit tending towards a Queen's design. Those of you with S and J saws - help with pictures please??, or at least a confirmation or refutation of what I am saying.

Anyway, where does this get us? Perhaps not very far, but it may help to date saws where the crowns on them or their medallions are discernable and they are at a borderline of the changeover of monarch i.e. William/Victoria; Victoria/Edward and George/ Elizabeth II.

((I hope that this is just the sort of thing for you Graham and that you will have an extensive comment on it)).

Fred

 

Hello All again,

I have found out how to transfer images now and so I attach the two below that I should have done in the first place. (Thanks for doing it Ray, it takes me a long time and an inordinate amount of effort involving the death of a vast number of my rapidly declining brain cells to sort out downloading/transferring images).

I also attach another saw image (from Ebay and which I have just found) and which I hope will explain why I think that this is a an interesting idea if it is valid. This saw could be any age up to WW1, but the crowns look to me to be Queens crowns (from a very poor photo) and so it would be Victorian rather than Edward/George. In this instance, this is not a very startling revelation, because most of the Johnson's in HSMOB are Victorian but it would rule out Johnson and Co. (1911).

It may get more interesting at the William/Victoria borderline.

Fred

 

It is late here so I will be brief.

I have just come across this Spear and Jackson. The saw is undoubtedly Victorian and the crown on the label screw is equally as undoubtedly a Queens crown.

I have also chased up my image of the S and J no.26 which I put on here some time ago. Now this could be Victorian, but it is more likely to be post 1901 and therefore a Kings crown which, stylised though it may be, I think that it is.

Indicative, I hope, that I am somewhere near right, but not yet conclusive.

Fred

 

The problem with learning things publically is that you make public mistakes.

Ponds was not at all 1942. It was more like turn of the century. Walter Pond, in the 1901 census is recorded at at 106 and 108 Old Street London and worked with his brother at Beech and Pond tool merchants. He owned and ran W Pond, tool merchants, Birmingham. Or at least so the Pond Family website says. (I can find virtually nothing in the directories except Beech and Pond). So, the crown will be turn of the century. I still think that it is a Queens crown though.

As for the Johnson saw, I was silly enough to buy it, just to get a closer look at the crowns on it. (As a saw it was not worth what I paid for it. The seller should be laughing his socks off). And they are really no help. See the photo below, it was taken under artificial light and so is not wonderful. If anything they are Queens crowns, but you cannot really tell.

Does anyone want to buy a saw? Well run in with an unrecorded number of owners! Nibbled top horn with indigenous and resident woodworm. No reasonable offer refused. Actually it is not a bad little saw and for once the blade is nearly usable.

Someone tell me that I am right or wrong on this or that the attempt is futile.
It will save me a lot of time, effort and probably money as well. It will also save you from having to plough through what may be absolute drivel.

fred

 

Re Ponds,

Sorry, I am not thinking straight on this one. There is very little chance that this is a late Victorian/ turn of the century British saw. The saw screws are definitley wrong and the whole thing is not right for a British saw of this age unless the manufacturer was very forward thinking. A re-badged American import perhaps, but this is even less likely.

So unless Ponds continued for at least another 50 years operating as a firm, my theory is rapidy disappearing down the sink. Pity.

Does anyone know of any record of W Pond, Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham for any era? ( They aren't in Trademarks on Base metal but from memory there is a Pond and Son(s)? around the 1914 mark, but this is in Dorset).

W Pond looks to me to be an ironmonger as opposed to a manufacturer although the Ebay title can be construed as saying "W Pond and Co. Toolmakers". I'm probably going to have to buy this as well to see what it really says on the saw. Having said that, it looks a nice saw!!

Fred

 

Hi Fred,

I do find this interesting and worthwhile.

There are some uncertainties in the direction your going in, listed below, but it is a very interesting direction.

No saw maker could predict when the Monarch was going to die, so there may be a period of time when the wrong stamp or etch as used. This might be quite a sort time as I think stamps wore out quite quickly.

There have only been two queens in the last 200 years. Victoria is the most useful as Elizabeth covers the change over in modern saws which are reasonably easy to date. Unfortunatly Victoria had a very long reign, 1837-1901, during the height of saw production. The start of her time could be used to seperate an early saw, but I don't think they were putting any crowns on saws that early. I'm happy to be corrected on this.

What this does mean is we could use the crown method for seperating a saw either side of 1901.

All very interesting.

regards

lui

 

Hello all,

I think that I will try to tie this one up and move on - so to speak. I have a feeling that the principle is valid, but the practicalities are, in the main futile owing to the lack of clarity which a lot of the crown markings exhibit. You cannot tell whether many crowns are Kings or Queens. And, as pointed out by Lui, the number of times that it may be useful are also limited.

I will put on just one more set of photo's to illustrate all three points above. The saw below is an S and J. The impressed crown on the back is a good representation of a King's crown. (Photo3) The crown on the handle medallion is of an indeterminate nature owing to the lack of detail. (Photo 4)

This is one of the few times when the type of crown may ( and I say this very tetatively as the rest of this is pure speculation) be useful.

If you look at the style of the impressed writing on the back (photo 2) it is very similar to the type of writing on the back of my 1917 S and J but without the "Ltd". (photo 5)

So presumably this saw was made before the company became Limited and therefore before 1917 when we know they were Ltd.

Now Graces Guide has S and J becoming a Private Company ( ?Limited?) in 1905 and if this is true ( and I accept that it is a big "if") then this would put the saw manufacturing date at between 1901 (Crown) and 1905 (Limited) and which, if valid is a pretty accurate date.( Even if the date for the company becoming Limited is not exact, it does not invalidate the principle unless they became Limited in Victoria's reign). Someone must be able to confirm or refute this.

Anyway, I think that on balance it is still worth looking at the Crowns on saws if there are any, as they unlikely to be a hindrance and may be a help.

Fred

PS I bought the Ponds and found out a bit about it. They were at 117 Steelhouse Lane, Birmingham in 1901 through to (at least the mid 1960's) and possibly early '70's at either Steelhouse Lane or nearby Constitution Hill.

I will get round to putting it on the site at some stage.