How can I tell how old a hand saw is?

[Adam Woznicki]

Is there a guide on the evolution of hand saws?

When I'm out hunting in the wild what are things I can look for, blade shape, handle style, etc that will show me age?

I can tell a modern saw by how cheap the handle looks/feels, but older than that they all blend together.

[David Gendron]

there is a few place you can look, like the http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/, and http://www.vintagesaws.com/. These are mainly for Disston saws but it should get you started on some thing. a few other things would be split nuts to the handle, apple wood handle or other fruit wood. no sharp line on the handle. etch on the blade, PPI stemp on the heel of the blade. Nibs... Taper grind of the plate(blade). And that is every thing I can think of at the moment!
Keep us updated on you finds!

[Pat Zabrocki]

Dave covered a lot of good points but one other thing would be to look for the lambs tongue style handle. They aren't always older but usually are, and besides they are the the coolest looking ;)
pat

[Jonathan McCullough]

In terms of handles, the oldest ones were entirely hand carved. They're rounded off and feel very comfortable in the hand. Also, they're made to have the index finger outside the finger hole, so your last three fingers are the only ones in the hand grip. Therefore it'll have a smaller hand grip hole. First time I held one like that it seemed like it was made made for a kid, or someone with small hands. But you're supposed to sort of "pinch" the saw blade, or alternatively, you "point" at where you want the blade to go. The horns on older saws are more pronounced, graceful, and artistic looking. Not to sound corny, but they wrap around your hand sort of like a handshake. But they're also a bit more delicate and prone to splitting off if you drop a saw, so on older saws they're often missing.

The newer handles look like someone took a square block of wood and drilled a bunch of holes in it, then chamfered the sharp sides a little bit with a router. The sides are still flat. Handles from the forties are in between the two periods.

Here are three examples. The first is a Disston No. 7, probably before 1900. See how nice and comfy it looks? The second is a Disston D-7, one of the successors to the No. 7. It's actually still pretty comfy, but you can see how it's more mass-manufactured looking. The last photo is from the 1970s arrest record of Vinny "the Saw" Stanley. As the cops were taking it, he was quoted as saying, "I dare you to pick me up by this end."

[Mike Siemsen]

Older saws tend to have the makers name stamped in the plate rather than etched

[harry strasil]

handle bolts ground flush with the handle and a screwdriver slot in the nut, mid 1860's and before. Skew (Concave ) Back, 1873 or later.

[Adam Woznicki]

Ok, so what years did these features come and go? (thanks Harry)

Better handles made with fruit wood-I thought all the older handles were made of apple. Were other fruit woods used during certain years or was it at the whim of the company?

Nibs-I've never seen one in the wild. When did they start and stop using these?

Makers name stamped on- that sounds really old. The only ones I've seen(pictures) were from England. What's the story on this?

Blade shape- some are rounded between the handle and cutting edge, some are straight(ish), most are round. Anything to do with years?

[Jonathan McCullough]

Better handles made with fruit wood-I thought all the older handles were made of apple. Were other fruit woods used during certain years or was it at the whim of the company?

Apple earlier, and on the best saws, sometimes walnut, then mostly beech. I think "fruitwood" was sometimes a fancified euphemism in the day for any old wood.
Nibs-I've never seen one in the wild. When did they start and stop using these?

Nibs go way back. They don't appear to serve any purpose but are traditional. Most sawmakers in the US were originally English immigrants or continued in the English tradition of making handsaws. They stopped using them around the turn of the century.
Makers name stamped on- that sounds really old. The only ones I've seen(pictures) were from England. What's the story on this?

You see that on old English and Scottish infill plane blades too. A traditional metalworking trademark found on nearly everything craftsman-made, from silverware to pisspots. Chemical etching probably gained popularity alongside printing processes.
Blade shape- some are rounded between the handle and cutting edge, some are straight(ish), most are round. Anything to do with years?[/QUOTE]

Go to disstonianinstitute.com and check out the history of the D-8. Other Companies imitated the skewback, but outside of some British companies, I don't think anyone in the US has made one since about the 1960s.

[harry strasil]

Hand Stamped, This one is for real, I know because its mine, and there is a good possibbility, it's the oldest known Disston.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/rip1.jpg



This is another one I copied from somewhere, but to me its suspect, because of the difference in the name and the lettering below the name.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/1840sstamp.jpg

A Nib,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/nib.jpg

[Ray Gardiner]

Hi Harry, That Disston is a real treasure. Looks to be in pretty good condition as well.

As far as dating saws go, the simple answer is you can't, unless you can produce a dated invoice (like the seaton chest saws).

You can however make intelligent guesses that set upper and lower limits.

For example, a saw with an etched mark, was most likely made after 1849, the process was invented by Bagshaw's and their cash books have survived, the earliest dated invoice for a saw maker was May 23 1849, as a process it was a vast manufacturing improvement over the distortion produced by the stamping method, as a consequence it was very rapidly adopted by pretty much all makers.

So if I find a saw with an etched mark, I can be fairly certain it was made after 1850 (ish) On the other hand if I find a saw with a stamped mark I can't really say when it was made without further information. If it was made by a large maker, say Spear & Jackson, or Taylor Bros, or Disston, then it's a fair bet they were using the etched transfer process, and a stamped mark is a strong indicator that it was made prior to 1850. But smaller makers and some lower priced secondary product continued using stamped marks for a lot longer.

Next we can look at the screws, these have changed in many subtle ways over the years, different sizes and manufacturing methods, but the significant change came with Glovers patent for improved saw screws of December 27 1887, saws with these screws we can say with some degree of confidence were made after 1887. Prior to 1887 a number of different types were used, but the most common being the "Split Nuts". Taking this further, if you find a saw with split nuts, when was it made? Sorry you can't tell... I can show you a Wenzloff saw made in 2010 with split nuts, and also one (looking very similar) made in 1790.. However if you know the maker and the screws look original, then you can make an educated guess. A Disston with split nuts, you can be fairly sure. But with a UK made saw the degree of uncertainty is a lot higher.

Handle style, is a rough guide where there is no other information on which to make a guess, possible exception might be number of screws, the number of screws tended to increase over time. But the exception here is that some later made secondary product lines also used less screws..

It seems that for every rule, there are countless exceptions and qualifications, I guess that's what makes this such an interesting topic and endless scope for learning.

Regards
Ray

Edit: I forgot to mention, that there is a case where you can be fairly certain of the date of a saw, and that's where it's by a maker that was only in business for a short time, as luck would have it that applies to a lot of the Sheffield based makers. But they can take a bit more research to track down since the window is smaller.

Also, with particular makers, Disston in particular there has been a fairly extensive study on the subtle differences in the medallions over time, so with a Disston saw you can get an estimate of the date by studying the medallion. see http://www.disstonianinstitute.com/medv2.html