I was trying to think of a title for this post and ended up borrowing the classic catch-phrase from those late-night telemarketers. It feels appropriate, because this time I’m not writing about one of my planes—at least, not directly. Instead, this is a short reflection on what often happens when you buy tools through Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree.
If you’ve done it enough times, you’ll know the moment: you arrive to pick up the item you agreed to buy, exchange a few friendly words, and then the seller leans in and says something like, “I’ve got something else you might be interested in…”
That “something else” is almost always another plane—or several—that they haven’t gotten around to listing yet. And sometimes, those unexpected extras turn out to be far more interesting than what you originally came for.
A few recent examples:
- I once went to buy a fairly common Record No. 071 router plane and ended up walking away with a not-so-common French-made Peugeot & Cie drawknife at a terrific price.
- On another occasion, I was picking up a lovely Mathieson plow plane. The seller also showed me some other wooden planes he had advertised, but he clearly enjoyed talking tools and eventually brought out a few he hadn’t decided whether to keep or sell. One of them was a Stanley No. 1—which he didn’t realise was valuable. I encouraged him to hang onto it (I already have one). He then took me out to a tool chest full of wooden planes, all from a single tradesman. I made an offer and ended up taking the whole chest home—a rare chance to acquire a complete working set with real history behind it.
I’ve also had the reverse happen, where someone suggests I visit a person who might have planes to sell. One memorable case involved being put in touch with a worker at a nearby waste-recycling centre. They had been setting aside any woodworking planes that came through, with the idea of eventually finding them good homes. I was invited to look through the lot and found several that were well worth adding to my collection.
The bottom line
If someone offers to show me any planes they have, I’m always happy to take a look and, if it feels right, make an offer. And along the way, there’s often a chance to share a bit of knowledge about what they’ve got—because sometimes the “something else” turns out to be the real treasure.