Anvil horders really p!$$ me off!

[Overmountain]

Hey guys, I know I don't type much on here anymore... Got tired of the same old same old and others were happier answering questions than I was... But this really got me boiling...

Just 6-7 years ago I could go to my local flea market and darn near hit an anvil while tripping over another one. A dollar a pound hasn't been the standard for quite some time, but occasionally I could be quoted that...
Now, forget about it.

Now, I had heard stories of some old lady ditching an old anvil for scrap price not knowing what to do with it, (and it made me cringe...) But I knew it happened... I thought though this alone couldn't possibly account for the soaring prices. And even with a bit of an uptick in blacksmithing in recent years, surely demand wasn't that high. I mean, they still make new anvils, and the old ones don't just disappear... I also know about the anvil launching crap here in the south... But they at least try to use crap anvils and use them over and over...

Then I saw it. Twice in one week. Someone selling an anvil online, and one of their pictures had stacks upon stacks upon stacks of anvils in the back. I saw everything from huge 500# ers with three 100# ers sitting atop it, to ceiling high stacks of mid 100's. Had to be several hundred in one sellers pics, and almost as many in the other. And they were selling them for premium premium prices. $6-7 a pound. These guys are as bad as the diamond dealers hoarding diamonds to keep the prices up. Man they need to be hit with a drawing hammer. Several times...

Sorry. I am lucky to have an anvil I guess and several good 2-4' sections of RR track I can use. But man that sucks for the guy trying to get a decent anvil and can't find even a moderate quality relic because these a-holes have them all.


BTW, still lurking. Still making. Still buying and selling. Other stuff has taken the majority of my time lately though. So bottle openers are about all I can keep going steady.
Good to 'see' everyone again though!
Cheers!

Eric

 

[Lieblad]

........

 

[Overmountain]

There are still literally millions of dis-used anvils in sheds & barns.
Keep looking.
Mostly due to internet, formerly clueless rubes can instantly know how popular Smithing is nowdays & all that rusty crap from Grandad can turn a good dime.
I recently heard about some nonsense called supply & demand... Cant fault anybody trying to make a buck from it.

Not trying to start something here. Just voicing an opinion. I usually add that disclaimer before I start on a rant. Thankfully we live in a free country where people can hoard anvils and speak their mind.... [emoji55]

I don't ever fault someone for putting good hard earned dollars in their pocket. Or even for seeing an opportunity and seizing it. It is when that is taken to excess, or done with a finite resource such as I see it in this case, that I have a problem. It artificially inflates the value of the items. Another economics term for you, polygopoly. When a group of people collude to control a resource or product in a certain field that has no alternative equivalent for the purposes of effecting the price to their advantage. I know they aren't purposefully colluding to that degree, but they are all steering their boats in the same direction.

And man, don't I just wish there were still plenty of anvils in old barns. The small family farm has also been forced out to some degree and has become a dying thing. Commercial farming always wins in the end... And this means all those old barns that had all those rusty old goodies are a becoming a diminishing resource. Just the fact anvil prices have gone up and they're hard to find proves it.

Ultimately, I just prefer to see this type of thing stay amongst those in the heat and beat community where there is still a little good will to pass around. I will gladly give a guy who can't afford it a tool or bar of steel. Some good stabilized wood perhaps or an old grinder motor I don't need anymore.

I hope you can see the difference, and why it irritates me. Most of the guys who 'saw an opportunity' have never heated up the first piece of steel to make something with it and I don't think care one iota about those studying the artform.

The funny thing is my frustration isn't even for me... It is for a friend who is searching for an anvil at a reasonable price to get started. I've already given him a chunk of track which will suffice for a while, but just knowing what his financial situation is, and knowing it wasn't always this expensive to find an anvil is what irks me.

And not trying to start a flame war. God made sure we all get our own unique opinion based on a view of the world that is uniquely our own. I'm sure the anvil horders have their own unique opinions about it as well.
Cheers.
Eric

 

[jwesthurl]

I looked for a loooong time for an anvil and I got VERY lucky to find one locally for about $2.50 a lb and that was only because the guy was being generous to my daughter. I understand the frustration.

 

[tattooedfreak]

I know exactly what you mean. My father and I are always looking for an anvil for me as I only have a cheap ASO and we rarely find anything less than $600 and thats usually for a lightweight one. There is a guy 2 hours up the road that always has them for sale but he starts at 800 and has one of his anvils on for $2000.. Its an antique he says, has historical value. What? I think its only #200, so that seems like a crazy price to me.

 

[i4Marc]

I have a perfectly good 126# Trenton but I still look for anvils once in a while. I am discouraged too. How many "collectible antique" anvils do these hoarders sell at those prices, and to whom? I feel the same way when I go to the grocery store. I see a pile of avacados for $1.50 a piece and most of them sit there and rot. Unsold merchandise doesn't put any money in your pocket. And you won't break the bank selling a few at inflated prices. If they'd sell those avacados at 25 cents a piece they'd probably sell most of them. They would make more money. If the anvil warehouses would sell them as "tools" at reasonable prices and not "antiques" at gallery prices, they'd probably sell them all. But then you wouldn't get to see their impressive pictures of anvils stacked to the ceiling.

 

[Drew Riley]

I just want to know where these guys are finding and buying dozens of anvils!

The thing I find frustrating is this "antique" market, where people pay so much for useless hunks of steel simply because "they're old!", that the anvils that are in good to great shape are going for a small fortune.

Deals are still to be had though, you just have to beat everyone else to them!

 

[Burl Source]

After searching a bit there were some blacksmithing sites where the opinion was that the best anvil value was buying a new one.
Looks like about $5 a pound.
Here is a link to an American made example.
I know nothing about blacksmithing. I was just curious so I spent a few minutes on google.

And......I still see anvils listed on craigs list once in a while.

 

[eisman]

There's an antiques shop here in town that has a dozen anvils. I won't pay $6/pound and that's what he's asking. I don't need one that bad. CL still has them on occasion...

 

[Burl Source]

I just checked craigs list and saw this one for $300

 

[Overmountain]

I just checked craigs list and saw this one for $300

Yes, they are on CL occasionally. But I can't travel to get one nor can he. That is where the 'antique' guys can beat us to the punch. Then ask $6/lb on the back end. Yes I will drive, but not 500 miles. I'd spend as much in diesel as the $6/lb.

I know they are still out there, but my point is it used to be fairly easy to find them. Now it is occasionally... Occasionally...

Is what it is I guess. Thanks for letting me vent!
Cheers,
Eric

 

[mete]

How about some DIY ideas ? A 4"x4" of 4140 makes a fine post anvil Should last forever.

 

[Overmountain]

How about some DIY ideas ? A 4"x4" of 4140 makes a fine post anvil Should last forever.

That's pretty much what I gave him. I gave him a 4' ish piece of rail and a 4x6x3' piece of forklift tine from the foundry here. I was planning on a power hammer last year and acquired some. I think it is mostly wanted for the hardy tools and just to learn working off a traditional anvil. Not that most of that can't be replicated... But you know how that kind of thing is...

 

[Fish30114]

I appreciate this post myself. I'm a try to do it myself kind of guy, and I have been endeavoring lately to make a quality knife in the 'Brut de Forge' style--I had decided I wanted to buy an anvil--GEEZ--very difficult to find nowadays--I'm comparing to the 70's when my grandfather was a awnings contractor and he did a fair amount of blacksmith work and we could spend a 1/2 a Saturday morning riding to whatever garage/estate/flea markets we could find, and we would see many anvils for less than $1 lb. Grandpa usually bought one to put in the shop for the newish guys to beat on. I totally share Lucy's frustrations!!!

 

[eisman]

I know guys who used to use them for fishing anchors. Oh well...

 

[Overmountain]

I know guys who used to use them for fishing anchors. Oh well...

I just saved a Gorton p1-2 pantograph in nice shape from becoming a mooring anchor. Some people are comfortable with letting cnc machines take over every operation in manufacturing, both big and small. I contend that a few of us need to keep these old practices alive. If not for anything else but to remember where we came from. Same with the trade of a traditional blacksmith working with hammer and anvil.

Eric

 

[Will52100]

That's one reason I finally gave up finding a good one for a decent price and bought a new Refflinghaus a while back. I got by for several years on a pair of russian cast steel ones from harbor freight, not good, but better than cast iron and pretty cheap. Too bad they don't have them any more.

What convinced me to get a new one, I'd been looking for years, a buddy got one and I tried it out. Wasn't long before I put my order in for one. Kinda expensive, but no worries about damaging an "antique", or possibly the hard face breaking off. And it was shipped to my door for between 6-7$ a pound, and not some half worn out or chipped up antique for that, and the hard face is guaranteed to be 60+ RC to 1 inch deep. Very few originals had a hard face thicker than 1/2".

For a beginner knife maker/bladesmith, it's hard to beat a 4"x4"x12" chunk of 4140. I built a post anvil and with buying the steel and heat treating it, and cost of mixing up enough super quench (35 gallons), I only have a little over 250$ in it. All I use it for is bevels, but you could add drawing dies with a welded on hardy hole, and it'd be a fairly cheap way to get started, and even if you got a perfect anvil later it'd still be useful.

I'd like to also point out you don't have to have a huge or pristine anvil for bladesmithing. Was at a hammer in yesterday at Terry Vandehventer's place and he's a very talented ABS master smith and all he's got is what looks like a 100 pound anvil. And a power hammer and press, but he forges blades to shape on a small anvil.

 

[JTknives]

Local guy in my area listed that he had 2000+ pounds of anvils and was selling. But only as a lot and firm $4 a pound.

 

[Mecha]

I'm sorry to hear about anvil hoarder problems, fellas, but my anvil troubles are over this glorious day. Finally got ahold of one I've had my eye on for a few years, from a good farrier friend of mine. It's from 1994, about 125 lbs, and made of chrome-moly! It's pretty damn close to new in condition, and is flat as a die. It's a HUGE step up from my small railroad tie and old, beat-up small anvil with a concaved face. My swords will be better and work will be way more efficient on this great anvil.

Here it is next to the old one:

 

[Kentucky]

While I hate to complain about how someone else spends their money Ive had hard times with blacksmith tool collectors over the years..Theprice has been driven out of sight on almost anything...A good large vise is like gold now..Think finding an anvil is hard, try looking at Swage Blocks and Cones..Just take your heart meds first..We have four shop anvils that all get used. two main anvils and two smaller traveling anvils..The 205 pound fisher that we paid $350 for years ago cant be touched for under $600-$700 now..The 90 pound 6" post vise that we paid $80 a long time ago, well try $250+ now...Ive been looking for another large vise for our other shop for 3-4 years and cant seem to touch anything for under $400 anymore..
Sometimes you get lucky on CL but its not nearly as often as it use to be..Lots of smiths give up because they cant find equipment. Now you have to be willing to pay big money and drive a good distance to find anything..Just the way it is now.