I have an old Record No 04 plane with an obviously non-standard aluminium tote marked ‘QPC’.
The tote has the initials ‘QPC’ cast into it and an internet search indicated that this stands for ‘Quality Patterns & Castings’.
This was an Australian company based in Brunswick West, Victoria from around 1925 through to 1980. They made all sorts of cast products including handles, knobs, glue pots & kitchen tools.
When I was studying metallurgy at Melbourne University in the late 70’s – I visited a small foundry in the Brunswick area, so I’m now wondering if it may have been QPC?
While I haven’t found any real information about the plane tote’s, it would seem that there are a fair number in existence. I surmise a possible reason for the totes was for planes used in school woodshops or general workshops. These are places where they would be poorly treated and the original wooden totes ended up being broken. Stanley produced aluminium totes for just this reason – so the QPC totes were probably a locally made cheaper alternative.