Today's haul

[Jonathan McCullough]

A couple of jacks, a Bailey #6 with a welded bed, a handyman #4, bunch of block planes including a Sargent version of a 9 1/2. A Pacemaker skewback saw, a Disston D-23 that'll shine up nice.

Intend to make a scraper plane with the #6. The Sargent block plane will be a nice user--too much rust methinks to sell elsewhere, especially when people only want Stanleys. I'll clean up the saws for my upcoming journeyman sawyer's odyssey.

[brian c miller]

A couple of jacks, a Bailey #6 with a welded bed, a handyman #4, bunch of block planes including a Sargent version of a 9 1/2. A Pacemaker skewback saw, a Disston D-23 that'll shine up nice.

Intend to make a scraper plane with the #6. The Sargent block plane will be a nice user--too much rust methinks to sell elsewhere, especially when people only want Stanleys. I'll clean up the saws for my upcoming journeyman sawyer's odyssey.


Where do you find this stuff? I went to our local flea market (probally 200 tables) and all i found was 1/2 of a number 3

[Vijay Kumar]

He is in Connecticut the home of Stanley planes !

[John A. Callaway]

I walked around the flea market in savannah yesterday....all I saw was a couple of hand drills.... all of them were 35 bucks or higher in price.

One of these days I am gonna check out the fleas in Jacksonville.

[Jonathan McCullough]

$35 for an eggbeater drill? That's fair. If it was Leonardi DaVinci's gold plated patent drill reclaimed from the wreck of the Titanic with a wooden handle fashioned from a true piece of Jesus' Cross.

But people at some stalls and at some garage sales are like that. They're not really there to sell something. They're there because they are lonely and want someone to validate their collection of crap. There's a guy at a local flea market around here who has a "special saw" that he "can't let go" for anything less than "$X FIRM!" It's old, but it's used up and so rusty that it's pitted beyond use.

People who put price tags on eggbeaters and other stuff like that have too much time on their hands. Too much time from not selling things and waiting to hit the lotto with a sucker who'll pay full price. Everything's negotiable at the flea market. I'd pick up that eggbeater and say, "$5?" If they come back with something reasonable, like $6 or $7, buy it. If they give you a steely gaze and shake their head no, say, "no? $4?" If they drop to $30, just nod, smile, say "thank you," put the thing down and continue looking. Sometimes they act like their pants are on fire and chase you all over their stall. Sometimes the look downcast like you just crushed their soul. Yes, over something little like that. But don't feel sorry for BS artists like that. If they had a place to sell it for that much, it wouldn't be there. They're just looking for the bigger sucker.

Remember, it's cheaper not to buy rusty crap at all, and you'll eventually find what you're looking for. And don't ever pay ebay prices. Ebay sellers have to pay up a viggorish to ebay, paypal, all those middle men, and some people get obsessed about winning certain auctions, so it can be difficult to get a good deal. Is a Dunlap #4 plane with rust pitting and missing totes worth $100? If two fools dueling to the death on ebay say it's so, I guess. I'd rather let them duke it out. I recently commented on a Goodell-Pratt #2 eggbeater that went for $125 because someone put paint on it. Good grief.

All of the stuff in the picture was $30. There's something wrong with all of it, too. Mostly just rust. Rust equates to time, time in your life you'll never get back if you spend it coughing up sawdust rust from old planes and saws. If it were all polished up like Jim Koepke does, it'd be worth a lot more, and that's what I'll do because it gives me pleasure to buff up something old and make it work again, give it utility and purpose. But that takes time and resources and money, which is part of what gives those planes greater worth. Someone will recognize that and give me top dollar for those when they're ready. It'll be worth it to them.

The real hard work is assembling this kind of stuff and selling it every week. It's the work of people with criminal records who made a mistake and can't get a job. Pickers who clean up dead peoples' garages. Sometimes a seller's table reeks of burnt plastic, the remnants from a home gone up in smoke. Sometimes it smells of gin, or twenty years of Chesterfields, or simple despair. That's the real hard work, and I'll gladly pay for someone to do that for me. I'm a regular, I'm a fair dealer, and I value any work a man can do. You can't put a price on your reputation, or this satisfying work of redeeming plane soles.

[Jim Koepke]

The real hard work is assembling this kind of stuff and selling it every week. It's the work of people with criminal records who made a mistake and can't get a job.

That sounds a little harsh. I have known people who did this because they really did not like working to make someone else rich. One friend did this for years and turned it into his own business. Long gone are the weekly flea markets. Now he and his wife have to open their shop everyday.

My brother used to do it occasionally. He also does not like to have a regular job, though he kind of fell into one because he knows bookkeeping. He just likes to buy and sell junk. He supported himself for years dumpster diving. Got tired of the diving so he went to the company offices to see if he could buy it from them before they threw it away. He is kind of a Mr. Entrepreneur. He owns his home without a mortgage and just kind of bums around.

These two may be the exception and I do not doubt there are flea market low lifes, but not everyone of them fits the image.