Shoutout to the old guy at the Rockford farm auction who sold me a 150 lb Fisher anvil for $80 | Blacksmiths - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Shoutout to the old guy at the Rockford farm auction who sold me a 150 lb Fisher anvil for $80
I was at a farm auction outside Rockford two summers ago and everyone was bidding on tractors, so this beat up Fisher anvil sat there with no bids at all. An old smith named Ray came up after and showed me the ring test right there in the gravel, and told me a dull thud means a crack hiding inside no matter how good the face looks. Honestly the popular advice online is to buy new and skip the old stuff, but a 150 lb anvil for $80 with a clean rebound beats anything I could order. I've been forging on it since and the thing still rings like a bell. Has anyone else scored real tools at farm auctions while everyone else was chasing the shiny stuff?
Scored a whole box of old files for five bucks once while a bidding war broke out over a rusty wheelbarrow. People really will fight over junk and ignore the good stuff sitting right there. That anvil deal is the kind of thing you brag about for years.