Disston No. 12 Medallion with Day & Year Reversed

[schuld66]

My brother-in-law was doing some remodeling work in his garage and found a No. 12 shoved down inside the openings in the middle of the concrete block behind a wall. It was in rough shape -- multiple kinks, two broken horns, and lots of paint on it. I managed to clean off the rust and was actually able to see some of the etch -- a number 12. I figured that's what it was based on the look of the handle. That's not the weirdest part, though. The saw is old -- it had a nib (broken off). The medallion dates the saw from 1887 - 1896. I didn't see anything unusual with the medallion until I cleaned it up and looked very closely at it. The "27" and "1887" Glover patent dates are backwards. Everything else on the medallion is normal.

Has anyone ever seen a medallion like this?

Regards,
Dave



IMG_0375.jpg
IMG_0376.jpg
IMG_0377.jpg
IMG_0383.jpg

[Bushmiller]

The "27" and "1887" Glover patent dates are backwards. Everything else on the medallion is normal.


Regards,
Dave

Dave

I suspect that it is the negative image. If these medallions were made from a mould or even if they are pressed (I am thinking pressed) there is a negative stamp to form the medallion. Somebody stuffed up and forgot to reverse the figure around. So you can imagine a scenario where the first few medallions emerged, were placed on saws and sent out as orders before somebody spotted the error.

If that were on an older saw (it is already old ) and the saw was in good nick I would suggest it would be highly collectable. In the days when stamp collecting was fashionable such errors made a stamp worth a fortune.

Others will have to hazzard a guess as to whether this makes your saw sought after. I think maybe more than if it had the normal medallion. It looks like a lot of work is needed, including a repair to the top horn at the very least, before it would be snapped up.

That's the long answer. The short answer is that I haven't seen this before, but I may pay more attention to the detail on medallions in the future .

Regards
Paul

[stuffy]

www.disstonianinstitute.com/funnymed.html

[pmcgee]

That link came out a bit funny somehow ... http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/funnymed.html

That's a pretty cool story for "where I found a #12"

But those saws were *really* used ... I mentioned in a different thread that they come up in *all* states of abusement.

Cheers,
Paul