Hello all, I have 2 or three saws to put on here, but I thought I would do this one first after looking at the photographs that I took and realsing that if you screw your eyes up and look at "cast steel", it is possible to imagine a hyphen in between the words rather than a dot. But this would then contravene my second law of saw collecting which is "I should be so lucky" (we can't all have the skill or luck of Joe) and so it is probably a dot after all. HSMOB has Millington and Co. from 1825 to 1839 and so this saw is probably at the earlier end of production than the latter, be the mark dot or hyphen. This is another saw that comes from North America (oh for cheaper postage!!), and when it was on Ebay it was advertised as a "Killington". The handle looked early and I associate (rightly or wrongly) a rounded nose with an earlier saw, and so I took the chance on it being Millington. Had it have been Killington it would probably have been an 1870's+ cheapie and a brand and I would have been severely disappointed. But we have had a terrible summer over here and so there had to be a silver lining in our rain clouds somewhere, as compensation. Fred
Hey Fred Tomaaato, Tomahhhhto, Potaaato, Potahhhto, Dot or Hyphen, it looks and sounds like it is all the same. I think hyphen but it doesn't matter. You must have pleased the Saw Gods because that is a nice saw. Again, when you see the pic, three faint crowns. And, so little pitting. It probably has a nice ring to it also. That is the first large saw I have seen from Millington and Co. Can't wait to see the other surprises. Joe S.
It's either a long dot, or a short hyphen. I'm going to go with hyphen. I'm glad it wasn't a "Killington". (Americans!) Toby
Hi Joe/Toby, I think Joe, that it is probably a case of small things amusing small minds - and you don't get much smaller than the difference between a dot and a hyphen. I think realistically that it is probably a hyphen but I will settle for it being a dotphen or a hyot. I am probably getting a bit of the stamp collector's syndrome (apologies to Graham if he still reads this site) where everything is scrutinsed for the smallest of irregularities or marks. Still, it is nice to be so easily amused as I think Kiwi remarked a couple of posts ago. This is the first Millington that I have seen, either large or small. If you have seen others, you don't have any images of marks do you? That would really be helpful. North America, Toby, in one guise or another has produced over 50% of the saws that I have that are either real collector's items or that are just nice. I give thanks for its existence daily. That and the fact that said North Americans seem to preserve their (saw, at least) heritage a lot better than we do. Lovely saws, terrible postage prices. Fred
Hey Fred, Me too, I live in the "Good ole U.S. of A.". I was just having a little fun with myself, and the guy who came up with "Killington". There does seem to be a profusion of saws here from all over the world, and many have been sitting in old tool boxes, unused and untouched for 50+ years. So they still look the way they did a generation or two ago. After the second world war they were put away in favor of electric saws, only to be found by the heirs. Toby
Hey Fred, Matthew Cianci has one, here, Matt is registered here, or you could contact him through his website for better pictures. Toby P.S. Simon Barley has two backsaws, according to his reply on Matt's website.
most the saws i find are just north of philadelphia pa. 90% of the saw's damage comes from a flea market vendor laying them in the grass a 5 am. or keeping the in a 5 gal. bucket full of rain water. robert
A Sheffield firm, but not Sheffield natives, I think. Book entries thus (excuse my feeding the info from this [allegedly] forthcoming book so piecemealhttp://www.backsaw.net/forum/images/icons/icon9.gif): MILLINGTON, James & Co SHEFFIELD Isle, Bridge Street 1816-1821 4 Bridge Street, The Isle 1823 Isle Works, Bridge Street 1846 MILLINGTON, John Isle 1825-1849 1821: saw manufacturer. A Joseph Millington (an unusual surname in Sheffield at that time) was a saw-handle maker elsewhere in the town at that date. The relationship between John and James is unclear. The records of Marsh Brothers contain a reference to saws supplied to them by the otherwise unknown partnership of “Millington and Smith†CROWLEY, MILLINGTON & Co GATESHEAD Swalwell <1827> Shovel and saw makers. The firm started by Abraham Crowley was probably the largest private business in Britain in the 17th century, supplying mainly iron-made goods, including saws, and a huge range of other supplies to the government (chiefly the Admiralty); by about 1800 the firm was sinking, and had brought in Millington as manager, but it failed towards the middle of the century. The business was based in several centres in and around Tyneside; some industrial remains are extant, and their business records are a major source of information about the iron trades of the 17th and 18th centuries (there is still much more to be found out from these). The Millingtons in Sheffield were probably members of the same family. No Crowley saws are known to have survived. GREEN, PICKSLAY & MILLINGTON SHEFFIELD High Street 1809-1811 1811: joiners’ tool and saw manufacturers; also listed separately as Pickslay & Green. ironmongers, at the same address. They were probably saw makers only inasmuch as John Millington was a partner. Pickslay was an ironmonger and merchant with a wider range of interests than the description might suggest, being involved with experimental metallurgy, and with the manufacture of cast iron goods; his activities were recorded in 1780, as Messrs Picksley [sic], Appleby and Bertram selling “products of almost all the manufacturers of Sheffield, stoves, grates, saws, files, plated goods etcâ€. Appleby appears in the 1787 directory in a partnership of founders in the Gibraltar Street area (close to Green Lane, which may have been named after this ironmonger), although Pickslay is not listed. In 1825 the same three partners were still at the same address, and advertising themselves as “cutlers to the Royal Familyâ€. A struck mark of all three names (70mm long, but too faint to reproduce) has been recorded on a handsaw of c1810.