Thread: A shout out to the wife. Best score ever

About ten or so years ago I dragged my wife to the UK for me to work... On a weekend train trip to Minehead we were walking down the main street when I noticed an antique dealer sign off on a side street... She said: go on have a look... In my mind, I had subjected her to far far too many antique stores and wasn't willing to wreck our trip by having me ferreting around such dust enclaves... So I said: no. But she persisted, and I eventually relented. My eye is well trained to scan for tools and I move very quickly. In this shop I saw nothing... But in the back were there were many boxes stacked I saw something that caught my quickly scanning eye. I went over and found a box that in the end had nothing worth looking at... What I noticed was it was a box stacked upon another box. My curiosity got the best of me and I pulled the top box off to see what was below. What I found was a cacophony of moulding planes in a box below. I started pulling them out and sorting them. As I laid them out I found I was pairing them up. There was a holy Sh%t moment were I realised I had a lot of paired hollows and rounds and then some... By the time I had pulled all the planes out I had a full set of hollows and rounds by Routledge, with the craftsman's name. A set of side bead planes by Moseley and Sons, minus one. And a match pair of 5/8 sash planes...

At this point I'm thinking they're not going to be a price I want to pay. After all there's over 30 moulding planes here... By this time I think, what do I have to lose so I take a strategic few up to the counter and ask the guy how much for one? He says 5.50 pound for the plane. I then ask: Who much is i want to but a few... He asks how many planes are you wanting? I say: All of them, about 30. He phones the owner and I get them for 4.50 pounds each.


So to understand this... I have a full set of hollows and rounds by Routledge with the craftsman's name stamped on them AND!!!! they the odd numbers. It's easy to find the even numbered sets, but I've actually never seen an odd numbered set ever advertised in 40 years. They're rare as hens' teeth! I've got a nearly full set of side beads with the same craftsman stamp. And a matched set of sash planes. If you're a collector, you know how hard it is to find a true match set... And I paid about 140 pounds for the lot.

Now here's the important part... All because I listened to my wife. I was happy to pass but she was insistent.