Shoe Cobblers Anvil

[lzenglish]

I picked this up today at an estate sale. I had never seen one like it, and it just happens to have the Men's shoe size adapter on it. I love this old strange stuff, and may just use it some day on my boot heels. I believe it was intended for making shoes, as opposed to repairing them, but not sure? Any additional info appreciated. No makers mark on it.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Aunt Phil]

It's called a last, not an anvil and used in both making and repair in the cobbling trade.

It's cast iron and will last forever if treated properly.

Now you need to build a bench so you can straddle it and nail heals & peg soles.

DO NOT EVER HIT THAT THING WITH A HAMMER DIRECTLY or you'll break it.

The base needs to be attached to a hunk of wood with 4 screws.  It works best on a cobblers bench, but a 2 x 10 about a foot long will work as well.

[64longstep/Brian]

I have two parcel sets and one of them looks a lot like that one...

[Papaw]

I have some three-legged ones I have been unable to get rid of. I bought them from a friend who was trying to raise money to keep his antique business afloat during a nasty divorce. I paid too much and they are tough to ship at a reasonable rate.

[scottg]

Shoe lasts are hard to get rid of under the best of conditions.
Whole sets (and there should be 8 or 10) sell for around $10. if you are lucky.

Monkey Wards (and Sears) offered them around 1900, and every farmer in America, plus millions of city people, bought them. Nobody ever used them, and nobody ever threw them away. 
It doesn't matter where you go in No America, you will see them.
 People will ask any price that occurs to them, but there are no takers. 

 They are exactly like the fancy little drafting tool sets, in a velvet box.
 Millions were made, none ever used,  millions are still available.
Maybe if you wait another 100 years there will be a market.


    I tossed the last ones I foolishly bought into the scrap iron pile at the dump.
    yours Scott
 

[Papaw]

Once in a while someone will buy one to use for a doorstop. Just no one I have found yet.

[Branson]

I have the exact model you found, as well as another.  It's kept in the battery wagon for use at reenactments, since modern reproduction Civil War shoes are almost as given to breaking down as the originals.  It gets a fair amount of use.   Price?  I paid $10 for the both of them.

[rusty]

>Once in a while someone will buy one to use for a doorstop.

Sad Irons work just as well, and can be had for about the same price LOL
(Don't ask how I know that.....)

[lzenglish]

You Turds are relentless, arn't you? Does this thing also cause Cancer in Rats? Lol
Boy, I'm glad I only paid a hundred bucks for it!
Or was it 2 bucks? Yes I believe it was.
Wayne

[Aunt Phil]

WELL, unlike the slackers, I do use mine.

Actually I've become quite adept at using it.

Then again, I got some good training from an aged Italian shoemaker who about taught me Italian in the process of showing me how to use some of the tools of his craft.  At one point in my misused yute in kid prison I was the kid assigned to put CatsPaw heals on every pair of shoes that needed them.  You do it right and the nails hit that last and make a U turn right back around.  You do it wrong and you get your ass busted by housemothers cause the shoes you put heals on are eating holes in socks. 

YES, I can darn a damn hole in a sock too using a lightbulb.  I might even be proud of that ability as long as I don't have to walk on the lump.  And, yes, it was me who encouraged a bunch of twerp kids to darn their socks with butcher string, the Statute of Limitations has expired on that one.

Hell, I once almost bought an entire Landis shaft and sole stitcher in an auction.  If it hadn't been for having to get the shaft out of the cellar of the house I would have bought it.