Saw a stat that 9 out of 10 anvils are fakes or damaged

I was digging through some old blacksmithing forums last night (you know, the deep archive stuff) and found this survey from 2019 that said 9 out of 10 anvils sold online are either cast iron fakes or have hidden cracks. That really got under my skin because I paid $500 for mine from a guy on Craigslist in Seattle, and now I’m worried it’s one of those. The post said most people don’t even check the rebound or ring test before buying. Has anyone else here gotten burned on a bad anvil?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_wright7727d ago

Why would you trust a survey from some random forum over actually checking the anvil yourself? That 9 out of 10 number sounds completely made up to me, probably just someone trying to scare people into buying from their buddy's shop. You got the anvil in your hands right now, so spend five minutes doing the ring test with a hammer and check the rebound with a ball bearing instead of stressing over some old internet post. Most anvils that pass those basic tests are fine to use, even if they got dings or a little rust. The real problem is people who buy sight unseen and then get shocked when it turns out to be junk. If your anvil rings nice and bounces a ball bearing back up, you're probably fine and that survey is just noise.

noahhernandez27d ago

That survey thing is way overblown honestly. @eric_wright77 makes a good point about just checking the anvil yourself instead of freaking out over some online numbers. People get so worked up about stats from random forums when half the time those surveys are biased or just plain wrong. Five minutes with a hammer tells you more than a hundred internet posts ever could. Anvils have been used for centuries with way less worry than this, so relax and just test it out.