Help needed, please. The saw mark illustrated is from a nice 14inch brass back of maybe 1900, but my trawl of the Glasgow trade directories last year did not produce the name in the list of saw makers. If anyone with better google skills than mine, especially from Scotland (yes, I'm looking at you, Fred), could pin the firm down I'd be very grateful. It strikes me as a standard good quality tool of the kind marked for hundreds, maybe thousands, of retail ironmongers between about 1870 and 1930. I guess most of them were made in Sheffield, but Glasgow did have a discernible native saw making trade, so it could have been made by Elsworth, for instance. There were several ironmongery firms in Tradeston (an area of Glasgow), but as far as I can tell from the directories, they used the owners' names.
Hi Simon, I cannot give you chapter and verse and perhaps not even the right Testament, but if you look in Graces Guide for the Tradeston Tool Co. you get directed to the Glasgow 1873 P.O directory. Now, I cannot find said tool company mentioned as such in any of the lists to be found in Graces', but what I did find in "File Cutter/ Manufacturers" was a reference to Tyzack, Thomas and Son of 161 (or 101, I cannot see clearly) Dale Street, Tradeston. The name seems to ring a bell. Could this firm and the Tradeston Tool Co be by any chance related with reference to saw manufacture?? Hope it helps or at least is a pointer. Fred ps. I have just looked at the primary directory with a clearer image and the spelling is Tysack and it is one "Son" only as opposed to HSMOB's "Sons", but it shouldn't make too much difference.
Tradeston tool Co Thanks very much, Fred - I knew you would come up with the goods. Grace's is not on my usual radar, but I know it should be. Will look. Best wishes and thanks. Simon