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Guidance on identifying age of pitchfork

vtpaws

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
46
Ok - I know this is an odd question, but I am new to MDing. I am working on my skills at my home in Vermont which is on 20 acres, surrounded by stone walls. The property used to be part of the old farm that was across the dirt road from my house. This town was settled after revolutionary war. There was a huge exodus from VT after the civil war when price of wool plummeted. Other than a Indian penny - this is most exciting find I have had. I want to do better than saying “it looks old”. How do you estimate the age of something like this? I found it next to a stonewall and was about six inches down. I was so excited as I have dug about 30 square and modern nails before I found this.
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I googled 3-tine pitchforks and didn't find any that looked like yours. That looks like it's hand made the way it's squared off. You could wire brush it and see if there's any writing or you can tell if the tines are welded on.

Nice find.
 
Thank you so much got the reply and suggestion. I will do that and reply if I see anything.


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Your best shot is to go to archive.org and do a search for the phrase “farm tools”
You can scroll through old catalogs as old as 1850’s up till recent.
 
Sadly, it's almost impossible to date something like that. Certainly pre-WW2, but beyond that there's not much to go on. I know farmers with almost the exact same style, still in use, but no idea when they were made.
 
This one is from 1930. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw that pitchfork. Anyone else?
 

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Ice Scratcher pointed out in earlier reply that in the picture, it looked like tongs on the outside of both sides had broken off. The flat sided metal that tongs are attached to - was broken off on both sides. It’s clear especially now that I cleaned it wire brush and oiled it up. I am going to hang it in our outdoor room since we found it on the property. Thank you for your response! I am learning a lot from this forum and I appreciate it...
 
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