Lost Art Press

A Huge Cache of Sharp Vintage Saws

Posted on by Lost Art Press

When saw sharpener Tom Law died in 2012, he left behind more than a thousand vintage saws that he had fixed up and filed – ready for use. Some of the rare saws went to collectors. But many of these saws would not interest a collector. They were vintage but common working saws – like the Disston D-23.

Josh Clark, the all-around-good-guy tool seller at Hyperkitten, has obtained these saws and is now selling them at user prices on his website.

If you just want a saw and not the whole backstory, go here. Don’t walk, run.

All of the saws are sharp and ready to use. And because it’s Josh with Hyperkitten, you know the tools are going to be well-packed and sold at a more-than-fair price. The saws range from $20 to $55, with most going for $30 to $40.

And did I mention they were sharp?

How did this happen? Here’s Josh:

When Tom passed away in 2012, he left behind more than 1,000 handsaws, all restored, sharpened and ready to use. For years his wife, Sandra, would bring boxes of saws to the yearly PATINA tool meetings in Damascus, Maryland. Over the years I got to know her and we’d joke about her saw horde. I always looked forward to seeing what saws she would drag out of the stacks to sell. 

Tom didn’t discriminate between the rare and the common, they were all just good sharp working saws which meant there was always something interesting to discover. It was clear there was something different when I saw her this past spring. Sandra told me she was ready to get rid of all the saws and reclaim her living room. She wanted to find someone who would buy all of the saws and get them into the hands of people who would use them. It was a tough project because of the scale (500+ saws) and the fact that the collection had been cherry picked over the years leaving behind nothing collectible or sexy, just good quality working saws. 

These are just the type of saw I love to sell so I committed to buying the collection. We came to an agreement on a price and she was pleased to allow me to sell them as “Tom Law” saws. Earlier this fall I rented a moving truck and brought the collection home (driving ever so slowly, dreading every pothole). Sandra was equally happy to have her living room back, and to know that these saws would be put to use again.

So if you want to do a good deed, and get a good saw in the bargain, visit this special sale page that Josh built.

We have six of these saws here in the shop, and I can attest that the sharpening is excellent.

— Christopher Schwarz

One of the Tom Law saws. In use today.

33 thoughts on “A Huge Cache of Sharp Vintage Saws”

    2. Oh, it’s dead dead now. I managed to fix the database problem that caused the first round of issues. However at 2:35pm EST my web host pulled the plug on the entire site because of resource constraints. I’m in 60 minute time out until I can prove that I’m a good by and will behave myself.

    1. Just heard from Josh:

      “Holy cow. Time of death: 1:42pm EST.

      My database server reached a max of 5,000 concurrent sessions and kicked the bucket.

      Working hard to allocate more resources now.”

      1. The Schwarz effect quantified. After almost forty years of programming I’ve finally started doing some web development. Luckily, my user base is bounded by the number of customers we have. I’ll probably never face anything like this.

    2. Unfortunately, I am the IT team. Ironically, I’ve worked in IT for 25 years. This is my worst nightmare come true. Doing my best to fix it, I promise!

      1. Good luck, mate, you need it (and I hope the instigator calls your a couple of cold ones)

  4. Good on you Chris.
    I agree 100%. Josh is an all around good guy. I had a few orders from Josh and _never been disappointed by product or contact.
    Have a great season all.

  5. Lol. Already bought (2) and had them delivered. Haven’t cut anything yet but yes, they are sharp.

    And Josh is great !

  6. I’ve bought a lot of tools from Josh at HyperKitten over the last decade. He’s a good guy and very transparent on what you are getting. If I had to pick just one place to get my used woodworking tools from, this would be it.

    1. Too many people bombarded the site & it got locked down. Try again after 3:30 pm EST

  9. Josh’s site is well worth watching. I’ve purchased a lot of tools from him over the last few years, and have been happy with all of them.

    Thanks to Chris for recommending Josh in ATC and for this post today!

  10. Well that’s wild. I moved to Smithsburg, MD a couple of years ago and may have happened in to a few saws sharpened by Tom Law via an estate sale. I did think to myself that the Warranted Superior cut particularly beautifully for being part of a relatively inexpensive lot.

  11. Do you know why I cannot access the Hyerkitten site. I get a “Forbidden” message.

  13. Given the overwhelming number of folks wanting in on this, I’m glad I learned to sharpen my own 30 years ago. Mine probably aren’t as good as one sharpened by Tom Law, but at least they cut clean.

  14. 5:42pm update: The site has been released from time-out and is surviving. I found the source of the MySQL connection leaks and fixed a very inefficient sorting algorithm on the main tool page that was driving up CPU usage. Nothing like learning performance tuning on the fly!

    Thanks for your patience, everyone. I truly appreciate it.

    –Josh

  15. Glad to see you (Chris) helping Josh move his stock on this. Josh is doing a service to the whole community by putting these saws into users’ hands again. I bought a couple from him a month ago and they are a ridiculous value.

  18. Are Tom Law’s sharpening techniques available to the public anywhere? (Yeah, I’ll go search, too…)

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