Hand-Saw Makers of North America

by Erv Schaffer

You don't get very far into the world of hand saws without the name Erv Schaffer coming up. Besides being a close friend and colleague, Erv is one of the premier experts on Hand Saws alive in the US today. Having spent untold years researching and gathering information of hand saws and their makers, the book Hand Saw- Makers of North America stands as the capstone of his effort to date.

Weighing in at 151 pages, Hand-Saw Makers of North America is jam packed with information about every known hand saw maker who made saws in North America. The book opens with a short history of the hand saw industry in North America documenting the earliest makers in the US and Canada.

Following is the heart of the book with a table which lists each handsaw maker known, location of operation and dates of operation. For major makers, important saw model numbers are listed as well. The data is organized in two formats, alphabetically and by state for easy reference.

One of the unique aspects of Vintage Saws is that often times another company made a saw for a hardware store that redistributed them under their own name. Erv lists all the know Hardware Suppliers and Dealers with location and date information, as well as the brand that they sold with model numbers.

The book closes out with a detailed history of the Disston, Atkins, Simonds, George Bishop and Welch and Griffiths firms. In each case, Erv presents the history of the company and lists the individual model numbers with the dates of manufacture for each. Sprinkled throughout are ads and artwork from each company which adds to the appeal of the book and gives a sense of the marketing environment at the time.

Finally, the end of the book is devoted to ads and broadsides mostly from the 19th and early 20th century. The book concludes with an exhaustive bibliography for further reading and research.

In short, no serious student or collector of vintage saws should be without this book. I have several copies that I keep close at hand, one for the office and one for the car. You never know when you will stumble across a previously unknown maker.

Hand-Saw Makers of Britain

by Erv Schaffer & Don McConnell

A book very similar in style and content, Hand-Saw Makers of Britain chronicles the history and occurrences of makers found in the British Isles.

The 105 page work opens with a brief introduction of saw making in Britain, discussing the four centers of production located in London, Sheffield, Birmingham and Glasgow. Included is a "style guide" which describes the various design characteristics of saws and the time periods in which they were popular.

Next are 77 pages of the Saw Maker's Checklist, organized very similarly to the Hand-Saw Makers of North America above. Included is the maker’s name, location, period of documentation and any reference material which backs up the observation. Did you know that organized saw making dates back to the 1660s? Find out who those makers were. Saws from the 17th century are nearly non-existent, but examples do turn up. Do you have a museum quality piece in your collection or basement? This book will help you find out.

After the checklist are a number of pages of advertisements which mainly date from the mid to late 1800s. It is interesting to see the advertisements as one gets a very good sense of just how competitive saw making in Britain was.

Finally, like all good research books, the last pages contain reference materials for further study and investigation.

If you are interested in saws made in Britain, or have some that you need to date, you definitely need this book.

Patented American Saw Sets

by Todd L. Friberg