Disston No 9 1876-7

[Jay Guarneri]

I finally caught an estate sale early enough that it wasn't picked over, and among my finds was a nice old Disston saw for $1. I know very little about saws but knew enough to look for nicer totes. After examining the badge and comparing it with the reference on Disstonian Institute, I believe it's from 1876-1877. Other than some light pitting, it's in great shape. The other interesting feature is the name "A.C. Currier" is stamped into the tote in several places. While (carefully) sanding away the rust, I found the etching saying it was a number 9. I don't can't find much about this saw, but it seems like it might have some more value to it as a collectible than as a user. Does anyone know about this one? What do you think, do as little restoration as possible and sell it, or keep it as a nice user?

Of course, I'm kicking myself now because there were a few other nice-toted saws in the $1 pile, but I was looking for a single saw for use, not thinking about value! Even for just personal use, it would have been nice to look them over more when I got home and pick the best one or two! Lesson learned.

478995478996478997

[Mike Allen1010]

A premium model from golden era by leading manufacturer- great find especially for $1!

My advice is clean it up and use it. My experience is trying to arbitrage vintage saws isn’t a money making proposition.Far better to to make this excellent tool made with best in class technology that isn’t available today into a productive, useable tool for hand tool woodworkers who will appreciate it. Just my perspective, YMMV

Cheers, Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Decent saws at $1/ea would be coming home with me until all my dollars were gone.

jtk

[Scott Winners]

Agree with both. At $1 each I would have backed the truck up to the garage on those and spent all my dollars.

Looks to me like that one is (probably) filed crosscut and a keeper. At the end of the day, you are not going to put that thing on the auction site, harvest seven figures and quit your day job. But you could sand it down gently, possibly lose the etch, wax it up real good and have a better user saw than anything in current production. If there is none or minimal pitting at the tooth bases (gum disease), you can apply a saw set to the teeth along with the sharpening and live ever so briefly (now and then) in another time when men were men (and sheep were running scared).

[Jay Guarneri]

Ok, thanks for talking me out of my dollar sign fever! I was thinking about it some more, and best case scenario I get enough money to buy a new saw of comparable quality. I had been thinking "Oh, gee. I can sell this and convert it into MORE tools!" but I'll likely get more mileage out of it keeping it in my shop to use.

And yeah, I definitely should have picked up at least a couple more! There were two more with the really nice totes (one Spear and Jackson, one with the face of the badge missing), some really nice braces, a breast drill in good working order, etc. But it was an unplanned stop while on my way to fishing with my 4 yo daughter (and only $10 in my pocket), so I had to make quick decisions. I DO regret not noticing the rack full of clamps until the moment some lucky guy bought the whole lot of them! No hand planes - the former owner must have gotten rid of them when they bought the planer machine that was for sale.