Posted 14 years ago
Bootson
(72 items)
I like old tools and never pass up a little anvil (3.5") when I see one at a reasonable price. I usually try to ask the person I get something from if there is anything they can tell me about it. Sometimes I am surprised by a story that gives an otherwise average item a life of it's own.
The lady who owned this little brass anvil, told me it was made by her mother's cousin in the 30's as a shop project at Manual Training High School in Louisville, Ky. He then went to Perdue and then to Officer Candidate School at Annapolis.
As a brand new Ensign he was lost at sea when the convoy he was in was hit by a typhoon. He was in the ward room when his destroyer, USS Hull, went down. She thought 2 ships went down in that storm.
Having the history of an item sometimes makes all the difference.
That's Heavy.
Thanks for adding to the story AR8Jason.
I have a similar anvil - I'm not at home so I don't know if it's identical. Mine was made by my uncle who was a seebee; he made it from spent shell casings from Pearl Harbor. My father remembers him bringing it back and wrote up the story and signed it. I'll have to get a picture of mine and measure it. I've never seen another one but I'm sure the guys made more than one. Is it possible this could be the true provenance of your anvil as well?
We used to make these anvil's in high school metal shop class during the late 1950's.
Back then the courses like wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, drafting were called
Industrial Arts.
I have one are they of any value.