Unknown Quantity

[Argus]

I have recently come across a wide gouge, which sharpens and uses very well better - than I expected.

The name 'Victory Brand' is stamped just below the shank, but I must confess that I've never heard of them. The maker is a mystery to me and there's nothing that I can see on this barnd in the usual references.

Is anybody the wiser? I'm assuming that it was a 'budget' brand, even though, as I said it sharpens and works very well.

 

[D_W]

Is this perhaps a post WWII hardware store brand?

 

[Argus]

@D_W

I'm not entirely sure. It is from that era - I presume - and British, because it has a Beech handle and conforms to the Sheffield List- it is forged at the bolster, giving way to a ground shaping where the gouge flares out.

I've never heard of that name...... but it's a good worker.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No, it wouldn't be post WW2 with a forged bolster.

 

[AndyT]

Pictures please! Maybe it was the victory at Waterloo or Trafalgar - did anything else get named to commemorate them?

 

[Nigel Burden]

A bit of a long shot, but in the Sheffield List there is one James Woodcock, manufacturers of edge tools, joiners' tools, engravers' and carvers' tools, residing at Trafalgar Works, Young Street, in 1905.

Nigel.

 

[AndyT]

The 1919 Register of Sheffield Trade Marks lists Henry Rossell and Company as owning the trademark "Victory" with two designs illustrated like this:

Graces Guide shows that the firm continued trading into the 1950s and were still using the same trademark then:

Does this match your gouge?

 

[D_W]

based on the first year, I think I picked the wrong war.

 

[Argus]

Thanks, Andy. The mark omits the stylised garland and includes the word 'Brand' - but the typography on the 'Victory' part is very similar.
I'll be back in the workshop later this week (despite a complete Covid-lock-down-bang-up-confinement-episode which is on the cards here in Wales), and I'll get some photos organised.

based on the first year, I think I picked the wrong war.

Wars can be a handy time-tag, I'm afraid.
I often use the same 'pre-war' date-line..... never sure which war, though!

By habit and choice most of my tools are pre-war..... pre-2nd War, pre-First-War, many are pre-Boer-War, some are pre-Crimean War. One or two old planes may pre-date Waterloo.
The oldest, by a long way, is an Axe-head that was ancient when they fought the Trojan War.

I mentioned the term pre-War to my Grand-daughter some while ago and she wasn't sure what I meant..........

 

[Droogs]

I tend to use monarchial time frames post Act of Union. Hard to believe that since the turn of the last centuary we have in fact had 5 different monarchial time periods- Victorian - Edwardian (7)- Georgian
(5) - 2nd Edwardian (8) - Georgian 6 - 2nd Elizabethan.

I do wonder if the next will be 3rd Jacobian with all the wonderfull furniture conotations it has or a rather dystopian sounding Charlsewellian kind of thing full of broken Ikea carboard shelves and OFL glue and sawdust tables

 

[Argus]

The 1919 Register of Sheffield Trade Marks lists Henry Rossell and Company as owning the trademark "Victory" with two designs illustrated like this:


View attachment 94355



View attachment 94356

Graces Guide shows that the firm continued trading into the 1950s and were still using the same trademark then:




Does this match your gouge?

Andy,
Many thanks for the research.
I'm now back at the workshop and here are a couple of pictures that I was able to capture.
The tang and bolster are forged, but everything south of that has been ground; the trade-marks etc emerged after I cleaned off all der kratzenkrud. The name mark shows a similarity in the font style to your examples from Henry Rossell.

I need to make a new handle, but judging from the way that it has sharpened with the initial edge that I have put onto it the steel is good. I needed to straighten the ground edge and to restore the corners, but it has taken the new edge very well.

It is a nominal 1 inch width (15/16 across the corners) and sits very accurately on a number 1 inch / 7 sweep on the Sheffield List, which is the whole reason that I've got it out of the odds and sods box. I'm getting interested in the Jacobean carving that Peter Follansbee is putting out on Y-T, which demands a geometric use of the whole sweep of gouges, hence the importance of keeping the corners for this style of work.

The maker's name......

The whole thing....................... minus the handle.

All best

 

[AndyT]

It looks a goodun to me. And I do agree about the sort of work Peter Follansbee does. I love the way big complex patterns grow out of repeated, efficient use of just a few sizes of gouge.

 

[Argus]

Looking at the way that it was made, I would have made a guess at 1920s / 30s.
I have just had a look at Henry Rossell's listing in Simon Barley's 'Sawmakers' and it appears that they were in operation up to 1944 in Meadowhall Road.
I'm not sure why they petered out in the last years of the War. It makes me wonder if the Meadowhall Road area was bombed around then?