Reply by Kazooman

I am not a collector, but I am curious. How would you go about authenticating the provenance of the hand etched date? I could take a HF saw and scratch a date on it. It might be “a nice touch that adds a bit of character”, but it would still be a HF saw. That might be a bit too harsh, but it serves to illustrate my question. As an aside, do any of you scratch the current year on the side of a brand new saw you just purchased? Any thoughts on why someone would do so 156 years ago?