Originally Posted by
Neil Miller
I'm going by the sellers pics. The spine is roughly square in section. I say 'roughly' but however rough, it would still have an acute angle at the beginning of the grind, or in other words where it sat on the hone. The names on these are usually stamped fairly centrally, and this example still is fairly central.
On a spine like this - on most spines, even - 1/8th of an inch is huge, twice the width of a modern pivot or wedge pin, and would have produced a roughly 18 degree facet that would almost certainly have touched or eaten into the makers name.
If it was buffed long enough to remove traces of the facet the name would have been eaten into even more and more then likely 'smeared'. Besides, the seller declares that it has had little wear and I see no reason to automatically conclude that he is a liar.