Age of a Square Nail

[Carlos2295]

Hello again. Yesterday I was showing off my finds at our local metal detecting club. I presented these nails as "square nails," however, someone told me they are "cut nails" and could be more modern. I've done a lot of research on them, and I think they are as recent as the 1900's. What do you guys think?

 

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[P.ALLEN]

no idea, but great condition, most of the ones I find are all mutated out with rust.

 

[BosnMate]

From the picture they sure look like cut nails to me. Off the top of my head I can't remember the dates when wire nails came into use, but your nails probably date back to the 1800's. If I had the time I'd do a Google search for you, but no time right now. Google "cut nails" and see what you get.

 

[Old Pueblo]

They are "cut nails", which just refers to how they were made. But we also refer to them as square nails because of their square head and so forth. Nails like this date from the 1890s and back. Round "wire nails" replaced the old square nails about 1890. Of course, they still make square nails like this, but the way to tell the difference is by where you found them. If you found them at an old place, then they're probably c.1890 and back.

 

[DownNDirty]

Those are cut nails & they generally date to the 1800s. Prior to that square-shanked nails were used; they were fired and hammered by blacksmiths. Cut nails were machine-cut from blanks. After about 1900 round-shanked nails were used.