Dating a Stanley Iron by Its Logo

The logo stamped on a Stanley cutting iron is the most quoted dating clue in the hobby and the most frequently misapplied. It is genuinely useful. It just answers a narrower question than people think.

What the logo actually dates

It dates the iron. Not the plane.

Irons are consumable. A bench plane iron that has been sharpened for forty years is a stub, and the sensible thing to do — then and now — is fit a new one. Every well-used plane in circulation has had a reasonable chance of getting a replacement iron at some point, and the person fitting it did not care whether the logos matched.

So a Sweetheart iron in a 1950s plane means someone put a better iron in a later plane. A plain post-war iron in a 1911 body means the original wore out. Neither is a fake, and neither tells you when the body was cast.

Use the body castings to date the plane. Use the logo to date the iron, and then compare the two.

The main logos

STANLEY RULE & LEVEL CO. — up to about 1920

The full company name, usually with NEW BRITAIN, CONN. U.S.A. Stanley Rule & Level merged into The Stanley Works in 1920, so this name caps the iron at roughly then. It is a reliable ceiling.

The V logo — roughly 1909–1912

A short-lived mark. Because the window is so narrow, a V-logo iron is a good sign that a Type 11 body has its original iron — one of the few cases where the logo genuinely corroborates the body date.

The Sweetheart (SW in a heart) — roughly 1920–1935

The famous one. A heart enclosing the letters SW, for William Hart, a long-serving Stanley executive. In use from about 1920 to about 1935.

Sweetheart irons have a reputation for better steel that is partly deserved and heavily inflated by the collector market. They are good irons. So are plenty of others. If you are buying a user plane, the presence of a Sweetheart iron is worth something but not the premium it commands.

The notched rectangle — roughly 1922–1935

STANLEY inside a rectangle with notched corners, overlapping the Sweetheart period. Both marks appear in the same era on different production.

Plain STANLEY in a rectangle — after about 1935

Once the Sweetheart is dropped, the marking becomes plainer. Later still it becomes a simple pressed or etched name, and the etching wears off entirely on a heavily used iron — which is why so many older irons appear unmarked.

Quick reference

Every one of these is approximate. Logo transitions were not clean cutovers; stamped stock got used up like everything else.

The one thing worth checking on the iron itself

Before you get attached to the logo, look at how much iron is left. Measure from the cutting edge to the slot. An iron with less than about an inch and a half of usable steel above the bevel has had a long life and does not have much left, whatever is stamped on it.

A worn Sweetheart iron is worth less as a tool than a fresh plain one, and the market prices it the other way round. If you are buying to use rather than collect, that gap is an opportunity.

Watch for restamped and reproduction irons

Sweetheart irons carry enough of a premium that faking them is worth someone's while. Signs worth a second look: a crisp logo on an otherwise heavily pitted iron, a logo that sits oddly relative to the slot, or stamping depth that varies across the mark. None of these is proof on its own, and honest wear patterns are hard to fake convincingly.

Sources

• book
  Stanley Tools: Guide to Identity and Value — John Walter
• reference-site
  Stanley Bench Plane Type Study (Types 1-20) — Patrick Leach