While one would assume that hand wrought nails made by blacksmiths were pretty much alike, one would be wrong. 

As it turns out, the early colonial period saw two types of nails being fabricated, the type one usually associates with blacksmithing (that today are described by the term "rose head" nails), and then the other type, substantially more malleable and specifically fabricated for coffins. 

Dupui's general store sold both types of nails, with customer Peter Pugh purchasing "Boards for a coffin and nails", with a later separate entry that month for a "pound of nails" (which cost him a shilling and two pence).  Apparently, these more malleable coffin nails were utilized often enough to warrant remaining in Dupui's long-term inventory.  Ledger entries included the following:

• "By making a Coffin for the Negro Wench"

• "By making a Coffin for Aaron"

• "By making a Coffin for my Son"

Initially, and unlike the English tradition that saw nails sold by the hundred, nails were sold at Dupui's store by the pound.  For example, we note a 1745 purchase by Benjamin Schoonmaker for "36 pounds of Nails" at a cost of 2£ and 2 shillings.  Some forty years later, a ledger entry for Patrick White would, by contrast, read:  "By Cash to 205 nails."  A different unit of sale had emerged.

A point of interest:  while we are most familiar with a pointed tip, spatulated tips, which were usually struck with a hammer once to flatten the metal at the tip, were less likely to split the wood they were being driven through. From their earliest use through the 18th century, all nails were hand-wrought. Blacksmiths created wrought nails individually from a square iron stock rod. To make a nail, the blacksmith would heat the rod until it was red hot and malleable, then the process of shaping the nail could begin.

The blacksmith hammered the heated rod on all four sides to make a point, and then cut it to the desired length. The head of the nail could be formed into any of a variety of different shapes depending on the nail’s intended use and the time period in which it was produced. The resulting product tapered on all four sides, one of the defining characteristics of a wrought nail.