Montreal

Social media helps reunite Rigaud blacksmith with lost anvil

Michael Appugliese lost his 45-kilogram iron tool last week after it fell off this trailer in nearby Hudson, leading to a frantic search and an appeal on Facebook.

Man who found it knocked on neighbours' doors and right away people knew its owner

Michael Appugliese has been working the anvil for 15 years and says it's perfect. (Neil Herland/CBC)

A Rigaud blacksmith has been reunited with his lost anvil after social media spread the word to the entire community.

Michael Appugliese lost his 45-kilogram iron tool last week after it fell off this trailer in nearby Hudson, leading to a frantic search and an appeal on Facebook.

It didn't take long for word to get around, he said. 

"I was at a family dinner, when someone called and said heard about it though social media," he said.

However, one of the men who found it on the side of a road wasn't terribly technologically plugged-in.

He went around knocking on doors – literally – to ask if anyone heard of a blacksmith on a search for an anvil.

"People had heard the news by then. The first person he knocked on said, 'Oh my God, I know who it is,'" Appugliese said. 

The anvil was an essential part of the Greystone Equine horse-riding school he runs with his wife in Rigaud, west of Montreal.

Appugliese was confident he'd find his anvil. Even though it cost him $1,000, it wouldn't fetch more than $50 at a scrap yard, he said.

He even kept his optimism through his wife's doubts.

"She's a West Island girl, so she doesn't trust Hudson. But Hudson is an honest place," he said.