the nineteenth century A hundred hammersSto hámrov

At the height of the trade in the nineteenth century something like a hundred hammer forges worked along the Bodva and its side streams. They turned bar iron into agricultural tools — hoes, spades, shovels, mattocks, picks and axes — and Medzev tools were sold across the Kingdom of Hungary and traded south into the Balkans. This was not a factory town: it was a valley of family workshops all making variations of the same few objects, competing and specialising against each other. One of them, Tischler's forge, survives from the second half of that century and is a protected technical monument today.Vo vrcholnom období v 19. storočí pracovalo pozdĺž Bodvy a jej prítokov asi sto hámrov. Menili tyčové železo na poľnohospodárske náradie — motyky, rýle, lopaty, krompáče, čakany a sekery — a medzevské náradie sa predávalo po celom Uhorskom kráľovstve a obchodovalo sa s ním až na Balkán. Nebolo to továrenské mesto: bola to dolina rodinných dielní, ktoré vyrábali obmeny tých istých pár vecí, súperili spolu a špecializovali sa jedna proti druhej. Jeden z nich, Tischlerov hámor, sa zachoval z druhej polovice toho storočia a je dnes chránenou technickou pamiatkou.