Anchor and Fish Chisels
This Swedish tanged and bevel-edged chisel is quite the specimen. It takes advantage of both the Jernbolaget anchor logo and the Berg shark logo while likely not being manufactured by either. I have only seen one example so far.
It has a beech handle with sticker, a dimpled black enameled steel hoop, and a brass ferrule with medium vertical knurlings.
The handle has a plain (i.e. not embossed) oval foil and paper sticker with a red and yellow background. “ANCHOR & FISH” appears at the top and “MADE IN SWEDEN” appears on the bottom. “TRADE MARK” appears above the shark-like fish and a stylized anchor and chain lies beneath the fish.
Birch: My guess is that this chisel sticker is a very early example of the marketing personnel of the new Bacho Company, trying to figure out what to do going forward as they consolidated all the different manufacturers they had acquired into a single new, recognizable brand. As we all know, they eventually just kept the Berg shark as their logo, since it already had world-wide renown for indicating tool excellence and the Jernbolaget anchor was dropped from the imagery. I’m sure the same choices happen every time a company with a recognizable logo merges with another- someone’s image has to go!
That’s an interesting theory, although I have not come across anything that supports it so far. I’ll keep my eyes open and let you know of I do.
It’s true that Bahco kept the Berg name and shark logo on their chisels and plane blades for a while. Eventually, they dropped the Berg name but kept the shark.
Bahco did the same thing with the Jernbolaget name and logo, but with their knives and cutlery. This makes sense since Jernnbolget was more well-known for their quality cutlery than for their chisels, plane blades, and other hand tools.
Birch: I think it is very interesting that there is no stamp on this chisel blade, when it has such an elaborate sticker on the blade.This is the reverse of what is typically seen, where everything has at least “Made In Sweden”, if nothing more. I’m guessing that was a requirement for things being manufactured for shipment out of the country. However, the chisel, which shows very little wear from use, also appears to have a beech Solliden-style handle, which would be very unusual for something being produced by any of the players involved in the new Berg-Jernbolaget conglomerate called Bacho. This tool certainly raises a lot of interesting questions and answers very few of them!
Of course- I meant “elaborate sticker on the handle”. Bad proof-reading on my part, before I hit the Submit button.
in closely examining a small chisel -marked only with a fish –a carp perhap??big scales —small letters SWEDEN
brass handle ring two lines of slanted knurling -and ”swedish ”shape
Sounds like it could be the blade stamp for a Sandvik chisel. Does the stamp also include a hook in the image?