Mystery trademark

[toolsntat]

A friend asked me if I recognised this trademark from a drawknife?
I've done a bit of digging but to no avail.
Some sort of sea creature within F F
Cheers, Andy

 

[AndyT]

Well, if you're asking this isn't going to be easy! Do we know which country this is from? There seem to be quite a few French drawknives around, so I have looked over the channel a bit.

To save anyone else effort, I have looked fruitlessly in these places that I have previously downloaded or bookmarked:

• The 1919 Sheffield Trade Marks register
• Eileen Woodhead's guide " Trademarks on Base-Metal Tableware"
• A multi-volume French directory from 1893 Dictionnaire encyclopedique des marques & monogrammes, chiffres, lettres initiales, signes figuratifs, etc., etc. : contenant 12,156 marques Volume 1, A-I
• John Walters' book "German Tool and Blade Makers"
• Wolfgang Jordan's site www.holzwerken.de
• Bob Burgess's site billhooks.co.uk
• The Belgian tool museum, which I think has a database of smith's marks, at https://www.mot.be - but the site seems to be down at present.

I've found nothing.

I think part of the trouble is that drawknives were not just a factory product - like axes and billhooks they could be made all over the place in small forges or by individual smiths. So there isn't (as far as I know) a comprehensive register.

But don't let me put you or anyone else off further searching!

 

[AndyT]

The Belgian site is back up. Searching on FF brings this on a broad axe - which has the right letters but is not what we want -

CB FF

www.mot.be

but it's as near as I can find.

 

[Alasdair]

Could it be Harrison Fisher from Sheffield?

 

[Pete Maddex]

Looks like a dolphin to me

https://flic.kr/p/NyLkD9

Pete

 

[AJB Temple]

Whereas that bronze looks nothing like a Dolphin......

I wonder where that shape came from. There is a door knocker in Godalming that I much admire - same sort of shape - but like a Dolphin sculpted by someone who has never seen one.

 

[Doug]

Could it be Swedish

 

[AndyT]

Whereas that bronze looks nothing like a Dolphin......

I wonder where that shape came from. There is a door knocker in Godalming that I much admire - same sort of shape - but like a Dolphin sculpted by someone who has never seen one.

It reminds me of the dolphins at the base of a famous statue in Bristol, made in 1895 and described by sculpture specialist Douglas Merrit as a very early example of the Art Nouveau style.



So we just need to find an artistically inclined blacksmith, maybe called Fred Flintstone, possibly in Bristol, Sheffield or Sweden...

 

[Sheffield Tony]

You could help a bit by showing the whole tool, which would help to guess between the likely candidates of French, UK or USA.

 

[toolsntat]

You could help a bit by showing the whole tool, which would help to guess between the likely candidates of French, UK or USA.

I shall consult with the owner Tony

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Ahh. Sorry, I had wrongly assumed it was yours. I think it is a long shot, so any extra info might help.

 

[Mike]

Whereas that bronze looks nothing like a Dolphin......

I wonder where that shape came from. There is a door knocker in Godalming that I much admire - same sort of shape - but like a Dolphin sculpted by someone who has never seen one.

Similar dolphins are used on the U.S. Navy Submariner badge. Some say these are stylized bottlenose dolphins, with scales added for effect. Others say these are mahi mahi (dolphinfish).