At 11:55 PM -0400 9/27/99, Jeff Grothaus wrote:
        After consulting "Anvils in America" (Richard Postman),
>The name "William Foster" may appear...[snip]

        After this and another private msg from one of our lurking
brethren, I reexamined my anvil.  Turns out it's probably the oldest tool
in my accumulation, thus legitimizing the further discussion of it in this
forum.  With the horn pointing to my right, this is what I now see:

   Crown image     (which suggest English origin)
    WILLIAM        (letters about 3/8" high)
    FOSTER         (letters about 1/2" high)

     38            (this is very faint and iffy, could be letters instead)

     1828          (I'm pretty sure about this)

        On the other side, more crudely stamped and spaced widely apart,
with about 3" between each element, is:

    1      1      18

        Calculating the first 1 to mean 112lbs, the second 1 to mean 28lbs,
and the 18 to mean 18 lbs, this suggests my anvil was coded at 158 lbs.
        I got "New Edge of the Anvil" by Jack Andrews out of the liberry,
and on p. 14 he illustrates "new style" and "old style" without much
comparitive description, but the drawing suggests that the new style is
narrower and longer, the old style wider and with both horn and heel a
little stubbier.  Can anyone confirm those differences, and suggest when
the transition from old to new came about, more or less (Andrews doesn't
say).
        One further note:  This anvil has a good hardy hole to the rear,
but no pritchel hole at all.  Can anyone say if this is common to "old
style" design, or to Foster anvils?
                Tom Holloway,
once again amazed and pleased at the amount of information available in our
little virtual porch here, and thanking all who are willing to provide it.