When you peruse eBay, Gumtree & Facebook Marketplace you could be forgiven for thinking that everyone selling has high expectations on price. However, every so often a bargain comes up.
In October last year on Gumtree I came across a batch of 14 wooden planes for $50. It was a 90 minute drive to Western Sydney to get them but the end result included 6 Mathieson, 2 Atkins & Sons, a Birch & Sons, a G.Davis and a Thomas Hildick plane. All required some cleaning but in general were in good condition.
Then in November I picked up an unbranded infill smoother for $62 from Gumtree. I also bought a Henry Slater (1873-1877) infill shoulder plane for $50 from eBay. Unfortunately this one was minus the blade.
However the best bargain of all was yesterday when I spotted a Stanley No.45 in original box for just $30 on Facebook Marketplace. And to make it even better, the seller lived just 1km away from me. From spotting the plane to getting it home took just 30 minutes.
The plane appears to have only had very light use. Cutter #10 (1/8 in.) has been resharpened and #18 1/2 (13/16 in.) has a nick in it.
All the parts were in the box, including the screwdriver. Even the envelope for the spurs was there.
There was the original instruction leaflet plus an advertising leaflet.
The box had the original labels and also handwritten on it (twice) a price of £2.17.0
The plane was branded with the Stanley Sweetheart brand and had 27 cutters – so this would date it as being from the period 1922-1935. I looked in a 1937 McPherson’s catalogue I have and at that time they were selling this plane for £3.10.0 . My guess is that prices didn’t rise fast back then and also the price would be standard across sellers so I would actually put this plane as being from early in that 1922-1935 period. This would make it around 100 years old, but it looks like it just came out of the box.
Another bonus with this plane was also in the box was a 1949 booklet on how to use the Record Multi-Plane No.405 (this was Record’s equivalent to the Stanley No.45. Another guess is that this plane was used sometime just after 1949 and the owner used the Record instruction booklet because it had a bit more information than the Stanley one.
So how much of a bargain was it? For an equivalent (including good condition box) I have found several prices ranging from $A500 to $A1000. The higher prices were sourced from USA eBay and included postage to Australia.