Hay Budden

[cutter]

I found a little anvil today on my way back into town from the city of Idalou.
(pausing here until the giggles subside) That's right - Idalou.
So I stopped at this place that has become one of my favorites & talked to the proprietor; he's an old auctioneer who understands junk, farm implements & the like and I discovered a Mexican anvil up on the porch. He said, "Yeah, but here's a good'un" & pointed to a different one a little closer to the door and proceeded to tell me that this "good'un" came out of a farm workshop where it had been for over 75 years, through 3 generations of the same family. It is in pretty good shape; I did notice one small maybe 1/2 inch long chip off the side of the face & a few dings but it certainly wasn't beat to death like so many I have seen. I asked the man if he thought it was a 100 pounder, he said he thought probably 85lbs so it's not monster but still, that's probably good enough for me. So I got his cell phone number, did my best to read the markings on the side which looked kinda like " aY Buddey" to me but when I googled it just now, google came back with "did you mean Hay Budden?" so I 'spose that's what I meant.
How does $125 sound to you guys?

[Franz]

Try HayBurton or variations thereof.
If the face is good, should be a buck to a buck and a half a pound. Of course, I'd want a hardie too for that kind of money.

[cutter]

It definitely has the 2 d's as in "Budden", not "Burton". And Brooklyn, NY.
Here is the reference I am going by & the link is below, along with a little
teaser at the beginning that I certainly didn't know.

Source: Blacksmith's and Farriers' Tools at Shelburne Museum, by H. R. Bradley Smith:

Mark Fisher is credited with making the first anvil in the United States. Backed by Norris he formed Fisher & Norris in Trenton, New Jersey, which operated from 1847 until 1961. Fisher's first anvil was a cast iron body with a cast steel face. All Fisher and Norris anvils used the Eagle Trademark. Fisher and Norris is also credited with building the largest anvil in the world (it weighed 1600 pounds) for the Centennial Exposition of 1876.

A second United States manufacturer of anvils was Hay-Budden Manufacturing Co. (James Hay and Frederick C. Budden), Brooklyn, New York. They supposedly began operation in 1890 and went out of business in the era of 1920 to 1925. In 1905, Hay-Budden claimed that there were over 100,000 of their anvils in use. Hay-Budden advertising says: `Every Hay-Budden Anvil is made of the best American Wrought iron and faced with the best Crucible Cast Steel. Every genuine Hay-Budden Anvil is made by the latest improved methods. Top and bottom are each one solid piece and welded at the waist. The steel faces to these anvils are all put on in one solid piece: not two or more pieces, as is customary with most anvils ... we have produced a steel for the faces of our anvils which will take a harder temper and be less liable to chip than any on the market ... and the blacksmith who wants a strictly first-class anvil can make no mistake in purchasing a Hay-Budden."

Hay-Budden manufactured a number of different pattern anvils, making the farrier's anvil with and without the clip horn. They also made an Plowmaker's Anvil, a double Horn Anvil, a Hornless Anvil, a Sawmaker's Anvil, and Cooper's Steel faced Beck Irons.

http://www.fholder.com/Blacksmithing/anvil.htm

Cutter, Good price and an excellent brand. While anvil prices vary from region to region, I think you could easily expect to pay a minimum of $2.50 a pound for a "decent" example...more if it was in better condition. The worse thing that ever happened to anvil prices is the Martha Stewarts' of the decorating world who think an old anvil just adds so much to a backyard garden. Keeps the availability low and the prices high. I picked up an anvil down at First Monday when I was visiting my brother over in Kaufman last Feb. or April and brought it up north with me.

[madam X]

Originally Posted by Wyoming

Cutter, Good price and an excellent brand. While anvil prices vary from region to region, I think you could easily expect to pay a minimum of $2.50 a pound for a "decent" example...more if it was in better condition. The worse thing that ever happened to anvil prices is the Martha Stewarts' of the decorating world who think an old anvil just adds so much to a backyard garden. Keeps the availability low and the prices high. I picked up an anvil down at First Monday when I was visiting my brother over in Kaufman last Feb. or April and brought it up north with me.

Oh jeeze . . . Martha is pimping anvils now?? My sister made me find and haul down to NY an old metal bed for a "Flower Bed" because she saw it on TV. I don't know if I'm up to anvil lifting yet

[Tom Zachman]

madam,
Did she make a bed of Roses?

Originally Posted by madam X

Oh jeeze . . . Martha is pimping anvils now?? My sister made me find and haul down to NY an old metal bed for a "Flower Bed" because she saw it on TV. I don't know if I'm up to anvil lifting yet

Madam, Sitting back in the flower section of the backyard garden the wife has her very own iron bed of flower as well. She's in her rusty metal backyard ornamentation phase. I used to take her with me on my forays up at the local scrapyard, but she kept wanting to bring home the "interesting" pieces that would have taken three men, a boy and a truck with gin poles to move. Even at a dime a pound I was looking at financial ruin. I'm surprised that Marfa hasn't come out with her own line of black striped garden work outfits and cut-rate ball and chain combos at K-Mart...course I haven't been down the garden aisle in some time.

[AZCoyote]

Hay Budden anvils are/were a great anvil. They are a great piece of American history that should be taken care of. My Hay Budden weighs 265# and I will never part with it. I paid $600 for it so $2.5 per pound is about right. That anvil is a great deal.

Hi Cutter,
I picked this link up off here somewhere. www.stagesmith.com
Click "Gallery", "Shop Projects", "Anvils"
I think you will find this interesting. Mischa

[cutter]

Thanks for all your replies & opinions, folks.
I bought the little anvil, no hardy available but I have wanted an honest-to-god-anvil for about 30 years. This is honestly the first one I have ever run across that was for sale here&now for less than $250. You gotta understand that where I live is realtively a new frontier compared to back east & we don't have 200 year old machine shops to loot when they close up or even 200 year old farm shops. There weren't enough people out here at the turn of the 20th century to hold a quorum on where to put the outhouse. So the pickin's on old tools is pretty thin & they don't come cheap as a rule.

Here the little feller is; it was raining when I took the pictures so I rolled a stump into the shop as stage dressing.



and here is the "rating plate"; some of the lettering is not readable but there is enough to clearly identify it as a Hay Budden, Brooklyn, NY. I have no idea what "MANUEL ????? RINGO" had to do with anything. Maybe this anvil was made to commemorate some famous gunfight or something. Maybe they were horsethieves that the owner killed with his hammer, I dunno.



The face is a good bit more chipped than I had thought, still plenty good for my purposes.