Panic, Patents, and Liberty Bell Planes
This post is a bit longer than those I’ve written in the past, but I hope you’ll enjoy the story that’s in here about another interesting plane from the Stanley Model Shop. 1873 to...
Tagged: block plane
#120 Model Shop Prototype Block Plane; From Evolution to Production
It’s late in the year 1875, and Justus Traut and the men in his shop at Stanley Rule & Level Company are still diligently working on a cutter adjustment mechanism for the Stanley #110...
Justus Traut’s Early Adjustable #110 Block Planes
As I told you in my last post, Stanley Rule & Level Company introduced the #110 non-adjustable block plane sometime in 1874. The plane was derived from Justus Traut’s patent No. 159,865 granted on...
Copy Cat Blocks and One From the Model Shop
On July 6, 1852, Birdsill Holly was granted Patent No. 9,094 for a cast iron bench plane. In addition to his cast iron bench planes he produced and sold two models of a cast...
Brown’s 49th International Antique Tool Auction
October 29th, 2016, Radisson Hotel, Camp Hill, PA By: John G Wells Prices realized in this article include a 13% buyer’s premium. A 3% discount is available for cash or a good check. Prices...
“What Goes Around Comes Around”
Aluminum Block Planes from the Stanley Model Shop In the first couple of decades of the 20th century, aluminum became available to manufacturers at a reasonable cost. Although aluminum comprises 8.2% of the earth’s...
More Rosewood Buttons on Lever Caps
In my last blog post I talked about two Stanley block planes with rosewood buttons on their knuckle joint lever caps. In this post I’m going to discuss two more block planes from the...
The Brown 48th International Antique Tool Auction, by John G. Wells
The 48th Brown Tool Auction was held at the Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Reading, Pennsylvania on April 2, 2016. Prices realized in this article include a 13% buyer’s premium. A 3% discount was available...
Rosewood Buttons on Lever Caps
By the 1890’s, Stanley Rule & Level Company had become an industrial juggernaut. They proudly boasted in their pocket catalogs that they had sold 1.2million Bailey planes. Their 1895 pocket catalog boasted sales of...
An Unusual Nickel Plated Stanley #2 With a Chamfered Sole
I’ll readily admit it, I’m a “tool collector”. I’m fascinated with all kinds of tools, but learned early on that I had to focus my energies and tool collecting funds on a narrower field,...