Anvil Prices - What's Happened?

[TFrench]

People are trying it on with secondhand machinery but is it selling? I sold a fine Union graduate fully tooled on here last year & it was a struggle to get shot of it for £850 & i took an offer on that iirc!

There does seem to be a lot of chancers that think they can charge dealer prices. I sell a lot of stuff and am generally happy if I can get 1/3 of what a dealer would want. Stuff like drills, mills and lathes and the more basic woodworking kit still sells well. I try to deal more in tooling though as its a lot easier to store and ship - and the margins are better!

 

[JoeSheffer]

Same with everything at the moment. It's lockdown and people having more hobby time. The price of everything, second hands bikes, gym equipment, old hand tools, has reached fever pitch. Facebook market place is full of lunatics putting old rusty stanley planes on there for £50-60. Rubbish - would take someone hours and hours to get them back into a working condition. I'm not sure anyone is actually buying anything, because sellers all seem to think they have appreciating assets. I'd just not buy anything at the moment!

 

[dannyr]

I'm lucky enough to have bought my smallish (not 'toy') anvil for a v few quid many years ago and use a cut-off piece of 'I' beam if outside.

one further confirmation of the demand (unless they're all unsold) is the number of sections of railway track being sold for the buyer to convert - just appeared on bay last few months, prices are not cheap - it's not too bad a material (manganese steel?) and you could use it as is but if you want to shape it to horn and plate, that's fine, but a lot of work and consumables for a pretty result.

might be worth looking along some old unused sidings?

 

[stevek]

I watched a Polish guy making one from a piece of railway track a couple of years ago, and he made a really nice job of it, but a lot of work and as has been said, a lot of consumables, and where do you get a bit of track? I seem to recall small bits of track being sold on ebay. Ive no desires to be forgeing anything but it is very handy to have somthing solid to hammer on rather than being tempted to hit the little anvil pad on my vice with anything heavy, so Ive stuck with my old lump of RSJ that someone flame cut the web back but sawed the top so its square at both ends and that lays on the shed floor by the door and its a useful thing to have, if you haven't got an anvil the lump of RSJ is cheap and cheerful,,,and portable!

 

[rafezetter]

If you want hand crafted steel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpCdsQVewO267HkwWeDSusg - SHE, is a newish scandinavian artist working her way through traditional techniques and looks like how I imagine a proper Nordic Valkyrie should (though when she's hand polishing it can be a bit distracting I swear I'm not a simp)

Alec Steel is another one (whom also sells anvils designed to his very exacting standards) - His delivery can be a bit overwhelming, but there's no denying his skill.

Jimmy DiResta bought an old anvil and renovated it by having the top milled then welding new steel to it.

There's a huge selection of really good, no BS Blacksmiths on YT (but also a few showing how to make sword from a leaf spring which I already knew was the best type of salvaged metal to use in case of an apocalypse )

I'd LOVE to try my hand at it - I have an anvil here (I can barely lift it and I'm a big bloke), no idea of the make, and the top is rounded over, but the horn is still good.

 

[NormanB]

I found the FB marketplace the best place if you're looking for one, i put a wanted add up and had dozens come to me thenjust had to pick the right one. Managed to get a barely used 140kg shop anvil for £120 about a year ago.
Collectors are also a problem, there are at least a few people in the UK with hundreds+ sat in a barn collecting dust

It’s probably just one of their many vices.

 

[Davey44]

Yes, anvil prices are £silly. I've been looking for a half decent one at a sensible price for our recently opened Men's Shed.
When I see asking prices starting around £120 and going up to £200+ for scabby old things with a bowed top plate, no Hardy Hole and a broken tip to the taper I think Nah, I'll wait!

I manage in my own home workshop with a 12" length of heavy RSJ, provided you don't mind the ringing noise and your neighbours are 'understanding'. I have jet engine at full thrust tinnitus, so adding in extra noise like that isn't good for my mood!
My step father left me what must have been their farm's version of an anvil. It stands about 10" tall and has a star-like profile about 10" across. It's not exactly as useful as a proper anvil, but good enough for serious pounding hot metal!
I also have one of the smaller (18kg) imported anvils mounted on a substantial tree-trunk which is useful for smaller jobs.

 

[Inspector]

I understand in some cases wrapping a chain around an anvil can reduce the ringing. Have you guys tried it?

I took a blacksmithing class over 40 years ago on Saturdays at a local college. It was fun using the coal forges and the Scottish gent that taught the class apprenticed as a blacksmith. Since then I always wanted to do more but the tools including the anvils were always too much or beaten to death. About a decade ago there was an add in a local selling site for an anvil, portable farriers propane forge and some tools for $400Can. I jumped on it and brought them home. Now that I'm retired and don't live in a subdivision I should be able to make some carving tools with it and there is a very old hay rake with lots of spring steel on it for material. The anvil has the old weight markings on it (not accessible at the moment) and equals about 120/130lb. If I put it up for sale now I could likely triple or quadruple what I spent on it.

A tip for carrying an anvil or grinder about that size. Get a V belt and slip it over each end and grab both sides in the middle. You can easily pick it up and carry it like a big lunch kit. A piece of rope works too but I always seam to have an old fan belt the right length around but never a short piece of rope.

Pete

 

[Sandyn]

Forget bitcoin, hello Anvils!!

I got one a couple of years ago for a reasonable price. It's about 100Kg, but I managed to bring it home in the real footwell of my car. It took a bit of effort to get it back out!!
I have a chain wrapped round the base and I think it does dampen the noise, but I love the noise of an anvil working.
I don't like when I walk into the pionty end, it's really painful.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I picked up a small one about 18 months ago, definitely not made of chinesium, not marked but identical in every measurement and feature to this - SINGLE BICK ANVIL 12KG (28LBS) – Anvils
I paid £60 for it, it's unmarked. Probably big enough for anything I want it for.

 

[johnnyb]

anvils in the uk have a really fascinating history tbh. the germans and swedes seemed to make the best. but Dudley had our best makers they were exported to America by the thousands. so really a traditional anvil shape is actually a British shaped london pattern. the earliest maker was mousehole forge in Sheffield. Peter Wright of Dudley perfected making a one piece anvil that are considered more durable than the earlier welded anvils. like saws the Americans were slow to manufacture there own and so were a huge market for UK anvil forges

 

[bourbon]

we did some research when we put the blacksmith into our medieval living history display. Our guy is a trained farrier. I challenged him to make a horseshoe ( which were used in medieval times) without using the bick. It took him four times as long. Therefore we deduced the bick was an early improvement to a simple block of iron. Having said that, he uses a 1901 London pattern anvil and no one seems to notice. We did look at having one cast, but the cost was prohibitive

 

[Jelly]

I got one a couple of years ago for a reasonable price. It's about 100Kg, but I managed to bring it home in the real footwell of my car. It took a bit of effort to get it back out!!

Several years ago I agreed to collect a 200kg anvil for a friend when I was passing the seller on business, seller loaded it with a tractor no sweat...

When I went to drop it off my friend, had failed to consider that 200kg was in fact really quite heavy, and was not in a position to safely lift it out between the two of us.

I then drove around for a month with it in the back of the car whilst waiting for him to sort it out (5 people, some 2×4 and a lifting strop) by which point I had acquired a reputation at work as "that guy with the anvil in his boot" which I still get reminded of in a suitably jocular fashion to this day.

 

[dannyr]

coincidently, just this am was looking at the latest post on a US thread (Vises on Garagejournal) where a guy chasing a large vice said the first relevant lot was an anvil which went for $5600 - it was about 400kg, but still .........

 

[Rorschach]

Nice to see smithing being taken up as a hobby but I do feel sorry for their neighbours.

I think a lot of people over estimate what they need and probably buy too big an anvil for the jobs they are likely to do. All my metal work is small and usually in silver so I don't own an anvil at all, I use a couple of different hammer heads which have been polished to a mirror shine and are used in my big Woden vice, they work great and cost me hardly anything.

 

[kenledger]

I looked for an anvil and the prices made them like Rocking Horse Sh**. I didn't want a full sized one due to space. I settled for a block of steel, i does the little jobs i want.
The TV show Forged in Steel? very weak and useless, don't know why it's aired really.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Just don't be tempted to get a cheap one made from cast chinesium. I have a little 5kg one the surface of which can be be marked with a hammer ............. through sheet copper.