I learned of a household/garage sale kinda late on a Sunday morning, and drove about 15 minutes from my place to the address. The place was a homestead where the patriarch had passed away, and one of his sons was selling an enormous range of large & small things from the house and outbuildings before the property itself would sell — object being to comfortably relocate his mother.
As well as a cultivator of small fields, the dad had obviously been a mechanic & handyman. There was an unbelievable amount of tools, equipment & parts in his main garage, virtually
all coated with an oily patina including rust & dust. I’d been looking for more than a year for some sort of anvil, and I spotted this modest-size one in great condition. Top surface including the horn is a bit shy of 12” & the weight is around 20 lbs. I decided my shrewd offer would be $15 (which would’ve been a steal, as regional anvil pricing tends to be several dollars per pound). But the son selling stuff said “how does $5 sound?” !! I was a
lucky latecomer to that sale.
After bringing it home, I used a rust buster
spray, then a wire brush on an angle grinder to clean it up. I made a mounting plate from plate steel, clamped the anvil & plate to the top of a piece of I-beam. I've set that atop a stand I made from scrap
wood.
(I'm happy to revive this
thread that reflects an integral institution of rural living.)