About This Site

This is a reference for people who buy, restore and use old tools: woodworkers putting a hundred-year-old plane back into service, collectors working out what turned up at an estate sale, and anyone who needs a part or a manual for something that went out of production before they were born.

What is here

The site is built around identification, because that is the question almost everyone actually arrives with. There are three ways in:

• The identify-by-marking tool takes what you can see on the tool in front of you and returns a date range, with the reasoning shown.
• The type study covers the Stanley bench plane sequence era by era.
• The model database holds a record per model: specifications, production span, identifying marks, completeness checklist and a researched value range.

Around those sit guides on dating, identification, valuation and restoration, and tool type pages on what each family of tool is for.

Current scope

Hand planes from four makers: Stanley in depth, plus Millers Falls, Sargent and Record.

Those three were chosen because they are the brands people actually cross-shop against Stanley, and because between them they answer the most common identification question there is - "this is obviously a bench plane and it does not say Stanley on it, so what is it?" The cross-brand size table is the translation between their four incompatible numbering schemes.

Beyond planes, the taxonomy already accommodates other hand tools and small machinery. Machinery will need a different dating model, built on serial numbers and catalogue prefixes rather than casting features, so it is a deliberate next step rather than an afterthought.

The editorial standard

This audience catches errors instantly. A wrong casting date or a wrong model number will be spotted within hours of publication, and rightly so — people spend real money on the strength of this kind of reference.

So the build enforces the standard mechanically. A model record cannot be marked published unless it has a substantive summary, at least two identifying details, a production span and a cited source. Records that fail are demoted to draft automatically, shown with a banner saying they are unverified, and excluded from search engines. Nothing quietly ships as fact.

The sourcing policy explains where information comes from, how confidence is rated, and how corrections are handled.

Corrections

Corrections are welcome and they get made. If a date, a measurement or a model number here is wrong, say so — ideally with the source that shows it. A reference that is defensive about errors is not much of a reference.

Affiliate disclosure

Where this site links to retailers for restoration supplies or modern equivalents, some of those links may earn a commission. That never determines what gets recommended, and no product recommendation on this site is paid for. Value ranges are derived from auction data and are unconnected to any commercial relationship.