Sources

reference site

• Patrick Leach's Blood & Gore (Stanley plane model-by-model commentary) — Patrick Leach
  reliability: high
  The de facto community reference for Stanley plane models. Opinionated but widely cross-checked. Use for model scope, production notes and quirks; corroborate hard dates against a catalogue where possible.
  Copyrighted. Cite and link; never copy text.
• Stanley Bench Plane Type Study (Types 1-20) — Patrick Leach
  reliability: high
  The type study nearly every other published study derives from. Date ranges are approximate by nature: Stanley used up old stock, so transitional examples that mix features of adjacent types are normal and expected.
  Copyrighted. Cite and link; never copy text.

book

• Stanley Tools: Guide to Identity and Value — John Walter
  reliability: high
  Standard printed reference for Stanley model numbers, production spans and catalogue appearances.
  Copyrighted. Cite; never reproduce tables.
• Patented Transitional & Metallic Planes in America, Vols. I & II — Roger K. Smith
  reliability: high
  Authoritative on patent history and on transitional (wood-bottom) planes.
  Copyrighted. Cite; never reproduce plates.
• Dictionary of American Hand Tools — Alvin Sellens
  reliability: high
  Good for tool-type definitions and terminology, weaker on individual model dating.

primary catalog

• Stanley Rule & Level Co. Catalogue No. 34 (1902)
  reliability: primary
  Primary evidence for which models were offered and at what list price in 1902.
  Published pre-1930 in the US: public domain. Scans may still carry a scanning institution's terms - check the individual scan.
• Stanley Rule & Level Co. Catalogue No. 34 (1914 printing)
  reliability: primary
  Public domain in the US (pre-1930 publication).
• Stanley Tools Catalogue No. 129 (1926)
  reliability: primary
  Public domain in the US (pre-1930 publication).
• Stanley Tools Catalogue No. 34 (1939)
  reliability: primary
  Published 1939. Copyright status depends on renewal - verify before reproducing images.

primary patent

• United States Patent and Trademark Office full-text and image database
  reliability: primary
  Patent dates cast into a plane bed are a hard lower bound on manufacturing date, never an upper bound: Stanley kept casting old patent dates for years.
  US patent documents are not subject to copyright.

community

• OWWM.org - Old Woodworking Machines (Vintage Machinery)
  reliability: medium
  Excellent scanned-literature library for machinery. Forum identification threads are cross-reference material, not a citable source on their own.
  Scans carry the terms of the contributing member. Do not rehost.
• The Garage Journal forums
  reliability: low-medium
  Cross-reference only. Useful for spotting variants nobody has catalogued; never the sole citation for a date.

market data

• eBay completed/sold listings
  reliability: medium
  The only large public sample of realised prices, but heavily skewed by condition claims, shipping, and mis-titled listings. All value bands on this site are derived from a manually filtered sample and are stated as ranges with a sample size and an as-of date.
  Data point aggregation only. Do not copy listing photos or text.