Blacksmith in 1500: Iron smelting in Hittite Anatolia

You can forge a hook in a weekend course; making a living takes years. Germany's regulated apprenticeship in metal design runs three and a half years, the UK's degree and college routes take two to three, and most working smiths say real fluency — moving metal without hesitation — arrives somewhere between three and five years of daily forging, with mastery a decade out.

Modestly, with a long tail. Employed and independent smiths in the US mostly earn in the $35,000–60,000 range (2024); UK workshop smiths commonly £25,000–35,000. Established architectural studios and well-known bladesmiths can earn well into six figures on commissions, while village smiths in the informal economies of South Asia and Africa earn a small fraction of these numbers.

What is the difference between a blacksmith and a farrier? A farrier shoes horses; a blacksmith forges metal generally. They were historically the same person, and the skills overlap, but farriery is now a separate, often regulated trade — in Britain it is illegal to shoe a horse without registration under the Farriers (Registration) Act 1975, while blacksmithing itself requires no licence at all in most countries.