Hello all, This is not an enormously exciting saw, being a good example of its genre and an average example of its condition for its age. It does however, come from Devon - Newton Abbot to be exact and I have not knowingly seen one from those climes before. It is, alas, not made there, W A French being an Ironmonger in 1879. There may be other dates for him as well but it is some time since I did the research and I did not record it properly. It has a 16 inch blade which, with a bit of decent smithing could, I am sure, be returned to use again. When (if) I finally retire properly, I will have an awful lot of work to do on my saws and even more to learn. Fred
Hi Fred, As you say, most likely made by a Sheffield maker, I wonder if it might have been stamped by the Ironmonger, the WA French is very lightly struck, and the NEWTON ABBOT mark appears to be struck over the top of something else.. Just theorizing, that perhaps a local Ironmonger want's his own line of stamped saws, so he buys up some other brand saws from Sheffield and overstamps them with his own mark.. ? Regards Ray
Hi Ray, When I first looked at the "Newton Abbot" I thought that it was double stamped because of the 2nd "N" after the last "N" of Newton and thought no more about it. I sent the mark to Simon who pointed out that the original stamp, (done with about the same weight as the) "W A French" was, in fact, Newton Abbott upside down. The last "N" of the upside down Newton being the 2nd "N" referred to in the above paragraph. Hence the overstamping to get it the right way round. I also found a note made on my Ebay watch listing that W.A is William Amery, that he was registered at 3 East Street and this was from whichever 1879 directory I looked at on p.562. Simon thinks that this is the only listing for the man. I really must look more carefully at the saws that I buy, or at least the photographs of them. Fred