Thread: Of old tools and ebay...

You have it bad.
That is good.
Welcome to the club, we don't know what the treatment is, but the addiction is mostly harmless.

Wish you were closer so we could play toys together.

It can become quite bad this addiction .
When you start making display cases and start moving the tv out to the back room .
Because you want the cases in side for when other members with the same habitual habit drop over ,so you can discuss the difference between the stanley tote thread and record tote thread till 3am you are at a complete loss .
Your only way out is to explain that the grate grate grandchildren will be sitting on a gold mine .
Fantastic effort so far
And my condolence to your family.
Bless them for not understanding.
My wife still does not understand why I
after Sunday mass at the local trash markets.
I have to spend all Sunday afternoon polishing tools.

Originally Posted by michael_m

.....or, I can stop anytime I want, honest! Mike

There are a number of easily recognisable phases to this illness. All identifyed by the simple statement "I can stop anytime I want".
I have this affliction as well so I speak with some knowledge of what happens to the brain in these circumstances (you may call me Doctor Doggie when I'm in a "white coat" period such as this)

Phase one is commenced by a perfectly legitimate requirement for tools for some purpose such as your need/want to complement your new bench (yet another recognisable disease in itself) with hand tools. Options to fulfill this desire are buying new, or, second hand at the markets, swap meets, old tool shops and, off the net. New is prohibitively expensive (although many tread this path and don't get further infected) and one can observe how they have traded mental health for destitution, divorce and possibly a life of crime (and all that entails) to pay for it. Everything else except the net is too slow, takes a lot of travel and the range on offer is much reduced . So, phase one ends with the decision to shop on line.

Phase two kicks off after a few tenetative exploratory purchases of what you thought you wanted and bursts into full blown form with a realisation of how easy it is, how wide the choice is and how cheap some of the tools were. You can't wait to get to the mail box. You get a sort of Christmas every week feeling like when you were a kid. You start to trawl all the websites of far flung dealers and endlessly check out ebay. You start to purchase the tools you had on your "later" list and insidiously you start to buy job lots of tools that contain some item that you really wanted. You start to accumulate a lot of extraneous tools that you dismiss with "I can use them later" or "I'll do another workshop at the beach house, son in laws or (and this is often fatal) or "I'm preserving these tools for posterity" or "I can sell them later to pay for the ones I want" or "I'm a collector" At this point you leave phase two and enter a more serious phase where the original intention is forgotten (except by your family and friends) and the disease has you in its grip.

Phase three commences when the internet has started to gain control of your mind. You are always on the net. You are always thinking about the net. You always have something happening on the net and all this is going on while you think its all OK. "Its all OK love, its just my hobby" "You have your wine, I have my tools" and other excuses made to make her feel better. Very soon your accumulation of tools has overcome the means to store them and buried your workshop/s. You don't know or think of how many Stanley planes you have or where they are. The characteristic of phase three is that the tools have become secondary and the transaction to acquire them is the drug that motivates you. The ever lessening thrill of winning a bid trumps ownership of the stuff by miles. Winning is all. Forget "buy now" and "free to a good home". You need to win that item and show those other bidders where its at. "Oh, are there tools involved". This phase lasts until you start to run out of money or you can't possibly accomodate more stuff or, hopefully you wake up before this.

Phase four is the let down. The terrible let down. Its the sudden realisation that what you are doing has become pointless, your life is pointless and, unless you are wealthy it is expensive and of course very costly of personal relationships. You decide to start to try and get rid of the accumulated pile of unused tools but you are met by the great truth - it's easier to buy than to sell. You realise you will be surrounded by your folly for a long time and possibly your widow will be left to unload the legacy. You feel especially guilty that you haven't made anything for a long time despite the plethora of tools of every sort. Yourealise you have not paid much attention to anything or anybody else. Buying stuff had become your hobby, your life. It has to change.

Phase five - the cure. In my experience the only way out of this is to focus down to one item and be religious in this quest . In my case Titan chisels. I'm sane now. I've pulled through. I'm all right. I'm OK. I am. Really. True. I've got a certificate to prove it. The pills are my friends. The chisels are my friends too. Good friends. Like nurse.

This post should be in the forum library as a warning to people such as myself. It will become a reference document
In my case, the realisation that a small block plane that had come into my possesion (no details as to 'how' will be given ) was about 110 years old really made me take a few moments to wonder about the history and uses this tool had throughout it's life.
I have a few fairly old tools, nothing extra special, but I enjoy saving them from a life on the scrap heap.
Identifying an items age, rust removal, sharpening and obtaining missing bits and accessories is all part of the game.
Not to mention using them on a project, although I am more than happy to use a router table or saw bench to speed things up.

Keep on posting your special finds and their restoration process, it makes this forum a joy to be a member of.

Alan...

Well done Mike,

You're right about the double ended screw drivers looking like err.. double ended screw drivers. As to who made them, I've no idea, but they are pretty frequently found.
You can never have too many bits and it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out for a 10" brace and even a 12" for that matter.
As for the 'foreigner" it may be German, from between the wars. I've got a couple with foreign written on them, though I'm not familiar with that trademark. I think perhaps the British or the Commonwealth had some sort of law requiring Germany to mark their export tools in that manner. Hopefully someone will enlighten us on that point.
Cheers
Geoff.

I have been kept safe by two personal defects. Firstly I am lazy, very lazy. I get almost all my timber in large rough sawn slabs which need milling into usable boards and the thought of all the effort required drives me to a table saw and jointers and thicknessers for most of the initial stock preparation. Secondly I am a bigamist. I love my hand planes (of which I have many), my saws and chisels etc. I do all the actually joinery and working with the dimensioned boards by hand because that is fun. But I also love the use of machinery, the bigger and noisier the better. That said either at the Wood Show or shortly after my next purchase will be a Veritas Scrub plane. I have some very wide Camphor Laurel boards and the best and perhaps the only feasible way the get them into shape is the hand way.

Hi Mike

I have two of these as well - I wonder if they came in pairs? Mine came from a tool sale at a club.

The blades are also double bevelled. I am still trying to work out why - unless it is the get the blade to fit. Anyway I have decided to keep it this way. Tuned up one so far and it works well.

I can't help with the EBayitis. It is something that you will just have to endure.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Thanks Clinton, Simplicity, Doggie and Uncle Al. I reckon I'm firmly in phase 2 at the moment. Dunno if I'll progress much into phases 3 and 4 any time soon - I have an aversion to spending more than 50 bucks a pop on anything; I get a serious attack of the guilts. Anything less than that though is grist in my mill. (it's also one of the reasons that I tend not to buy new too)

The other reason for not buying new is with the old tools I'm getting almost as much joy from cleaning, fixing and setting them up as I am in using them. For instance, I'm deliberately buying chisels with dodgy or missing handles because I want to replace them.

Cheers, Mike

Originally Posted by Boringgeoff

Well done Mike,

You're right about the double ended screw drivers looking like err.. double ended screw drivers. As to who made them, I've no idea, but they are pretty frequently found.
You can never have too many bits and it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out for a 10" brace and even a 12" for that matter.
As for the 'foreigner" it may be German, from between the wars. I've got a couple with foreign written on them, though I'm not familiar with that trademark. I think perhaps the British or the Commonwealth had some sort of law requiring Germany to mark their export tools in that manner. Hopefully someone will enlighten us on that point.
Cheers
Geoff.

Thanks Geoff, it's good to get confirmation they are what I thought they are. I am currently keeping a weather eye out for a 12" brace, but I'm not in a huge rush for one (in other words, I want it, but don't need it for a current project). I already have a 10" Stanley 75 brace, which I inherited from my grandfather about a decade ago. But another one or two wouldn't hurt either. Surely if I can never have too many bits, I can never have too many braces too?

I've done a bit of google-trawling on the JS&S logo, and I think I have a partial answer. John Shaw & Sons of Wolverhampton used the same steam governor symbol in their logo. But I have no idea why the "foreign" is written below the logo?

Cheers, Mike

Thanks Derek,

I'll leave them as a double-bevel then, given that they are meant to be that way.

I have no idea why they would come in a pair either - they seem identical in all respects.

Cheers, Mike

In the top photo, bottom shelf, looks like an Aldi smooth plane. I bought one a whim ( $14 )and am quite happy with it. It's set medium fine and used for bulk removal. The steel is surprisingly ok.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Hi Mike

I have two of these as well - I wonder if they came in pairs? Mine came from a tool sale at a club.

The blades are also double bevelled. I am still trying to work out why - unless it is the get the blade to fit. Anyway I have decided to keep it this way. Tuned up one so far and it works well.

I can't help with the EBayitis. It is something that you will just have to endure.

Regards from Perth

Derek

These are from Indonesia or Bali.They are often made from very nice timber, similar to Rosewood or Ebony.
A mate who was organising the making and shipping sets of Balinese carving tools for me when I worked for GW in another life sent me a few as samples.
He had a finishing shop in Surabaya so they may be from Java.
They do have a double bevel.
H.

I knew/read that 'foreign' was a code for German ... I figured it was after WW2 ... but ...
http://www.ebay.com.au/gds/Antique-B...7627901/g.html

Makers’ Marks
The 1887 British Merchandise Act and the 1891 US McKinley Tariff Act led to the introduction of makers’ marks. The Merchandise Act was intended to protect Britain from German imports, and German products were required to carry the ‘Made in Germany’ mark. Although the McKinley Act initially required items to be marked ‘foreign,’ it was later revised to fall in line with the Merchandise Act to include, in English, the phrase ‘made in’ and the country of origin.. However, these restrictions only applied to goods intended for export. Items from this period that were inherited or that passed through borders as part of an immigrant’s household goods may not bear a maker’s mark.


Makers’ marks include the manufacturer’s name or logo and the place the product was made. These can be cross-referenced with online or other directories to establish age and authenticity. While some items may be stamped or engraved with a date, this is relatively rare in earlier pieces. The maker’s details can be found under the base of the item, inside the lid, on the back of the handle or in some other conspicuous place.

A scissor page says "If they’re marked “Foreign” they were imported into England from about 1900-1930"

Mike,
I think you nailed it with John Shaw and Sons as the logo certainly looks the same. Did J S & S have to mark their tools "foreign" for the Indian market? I don't think so because as the owners of the British Commonwealth the Poms didn't consider themselves foreign.
A couple of braces I have here made by Eduard Engels of Germany and advertised in the 1937 McPhersons catalogue, haven't got "foreign" on them, which is why I think the foreign brand was earlier than 1937 which concurs with Pauls scissor page statement of 1900-1930.
Perhaps John Shaw & Sons were importing them from Germany for the domestic market?
This is exactly what other respondents to this thread are warning us about, the insidious way that collecting, restoring, using and learning about old hand tools can take over your life.
Cheers,
Geoff.