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  1. #1
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    Default Stanley Australia HSS-tipped blade, what's it worth?

    Picked up an old Stanley Australia HSS-tipped blade a while ago and was just wondering what it's worth.
    Brand new, never used, still has the original grind and still covered in the factory rust-preventative.

    Cheers

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  3. #2
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    "Worth" is a rather subjective word. To a collector of Australian Stanley's it is worth more than a collector of US or English Stanley's, but to someone like me who would cheerfully throw it into a plane and use it for its intended purpose... $20 tops. A brand new English blade only costs about $30 anyway.

    I'm currently restoring a 1911 number 5 and looking for a replacement blade because the original has been ground as a really shallow angled scrub. I'll lose about 3/16" of the blade to fix this but because this specific blade was only made for four years I don't want to touch it. It'll get cleaned up and put aside for that (hopefully) distant day in the future when I sell the plane, a modern blade will be fitted for using in the meantime.

  4. #3
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    I think I paid $27 or something like that when I bought the last one on the rack at a country hardware store, about 25 years ago! But as Chief Tiff says, it may be worth lots more to someone who wants a mint specimen of that sample of Australiana - thre can't be too many around that have not seen any use.

    Have to say, they were good blades for the time, vastly better than originals, and mine did yeoman service. But if you want a user, the LV HSS replacement blades are about the same cost in current $ terms and are slightly thicker, which I think makes them a little better still.

    Cheers,
    IW

  5. #4
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    If I had that iron, I'd probably put it on ebay for $100 US because someone might really want it, it's uncommon, and brent beach's page certainly has done much to lionize them. It might turn out that nobody does, but it would only cost about 30 cents of listing fees to experiment.

  6. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    If I had that iron, I'd probably put it on ebay for $100 US because someone might really want it, it's uncommon, and brent beach's page certainly has done much to lionize them. It might turn out that nobody does, but it would only cost about 30 cents of listing fees to experiment.
    I still use my Dad's Stanley No 5 with the HSS tipped blade that I retrofitted. The blade was the best purchase I ever made back in the late 1980's (I think?).

    How do you date an Australian made Stanley No 5? My guess is this one is certainly well pre 1950's as it was Dad's from then on. I never knew how it became his, whether he was given it or purchased it. The plane has original "rosewood" handles and is still a "user" that I regularly use & one I would never part with.
    Mobyturns

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  7. #6
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    This blade is a typical Stanley adoption of local products once they have taken over another company.
    The Turner tipped irons are now quite rare.
    The original Shaw even more so.
    I took a few of the Stanley irons with me when I visited Krenov in the early 80s and had no trouble swapping them for the local thicker ones made at Fort Bragg.My memory fails me re the maker!?
    Hows this for an interesting local? number 4/5 size
    H.
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  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mobyturns View Post
    ......How do you date an Australian made Stanley No 5? My guess is this one is certainly well pre 1950's as it was Dad's from then on. I never knew how it became his, whether he was given it or purchased it. The plane has original "rosewood" handles and is still a "user" that I regularly use & one I would never part with.
    Either your memory is playing tricks on you, Mobyturns, or that's not an Australian-made Stanley. As far as I can ascertain, Stanley didn't make any plane here with their name on it until 1963/4. The 'rosewood' handle is interesting, I've not come across any Aussie models with genuine rosewood handles, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, of course...
    Cheers,
    IW

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    Thanks for the responses guys, didn't expect it to generate so much interest.

    D.W, I'll make you a special deal; $80 Australian and it's yours

  10. #9
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    That's tempting, even though I don't use that type of blade much. A couple of years ago, I would've taken it off your hands without question, but as I get older, I'm beginning to realize I have a problem of excess!

    Presume that it's 2 inches wide? The dollar is strong now and in translation, it'd be about $65 US after conversion fees...then plus shipping. Which is approximately $7,000 per ounce from australia to the US.

  11. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by D.W. View Post
    That's tempting, even though I don't use that type of blade much. A couple of years ago, I would've taken it off your hands without question, but as I get older, I'm beginning to realize I have a problem of excess!

    Presume that it's 2 inches wide? The dollar is strong now and in translation, it'd be about $65 US after conversion fees...then plus shipping. Which is approximately $7,000 per ounce from australia to the US.
    I think it's 2 inches, can check if you want. I'd love to know who's making all the money off AU-US shipping. It's outrageous.

  12. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by elanjacobs View Post
    I think it's 2 inches, can check if you want. I'd love to know who's making all the money off AU-US shipping. It's outrageous.
    It'd be a strange thing to take an iron meant for abrasive woods out of australia (where there's lots of them) and bring it into the US where most of our woods are calm!!

    I do think you should list it on ebay, it's a rare bird, and then if you can't dump it....once I have lost the ability to resist again getting something I don't need...

    ...well, I just hope it's for a #3 sized plane, because I have none of those!! that would solve it.

    I do think that if the size is known, someone in AUS who likes to use stanley planes may wish to have it and have much more use for it than me.

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    Dave

    Just as a heads-up on the #3 ... I have a Mujingfang HSS in one of mine (this is one of the early Mujis that came with a HSS section welded to the blades body. Just coincidence that it is 1 3/4" wide and shaped like a Stanley blade). The hole is at the wrong end, but that does not make any difference. Damn good blade.

    Regards fro Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  14. #13
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    I've got a couple of those, too

    They are in continental smoothers, but they fit in stanley planes and are the right width for a stanley plane iron. You're right, they're nice irons. i still haven't figured out if they're T series or M series steel, and I probably never will, but for the $10 or so they cost when they're available, they probably win the bang for the buck award easily.

    Muji put out some economy chisels that are interesting that they taper by width instead of thickness along their length. They are also HSS, but they sharpen on an Okudo suita stone that I have, and better than some of the harder white steel japanese chisels. The chisels themselves are very cheaply made, just a slab of metal stuck into a barrel handle that inevitably fails and needs to be permanently fixed.....but the chisels are marvelous otherwise, especially for plane mortising where you want to remove material fast. They never bind in a mortise because there is nothing to bind with the sides relieved.

    Anyway, all of these things come to my mind when thinking about getting yet another curiosity! I've got stanley pattern irons that I cut by hand from bar stock (and hardened and tempered), too, with a drill press, hack saw and files, and don't use those either!

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    It appears that my off the cuff estimation of worth may have been off by a bee's winky or so..

    After reading DW's post and investigating who Brent Beach is I have come to the conclusion that maybe I ought to have looked at the original post a little harder; I had made the assumption that the blade in question was a normal Stanley blade but "Made in Australia".

    I had no idea that these blades were quite so unique!

  16. #15
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    Turns out its a 60mm wide blade (which would be 2 3/8"), does that change things even more?
    I had no idea they were so valuable, I might have to put it back in the cupboard for another decade or three

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