Came home with some lovely old tools the other day...

[Hasin Haroon]

Against my better judgement, I responded to a local classified and fell right into the deep end again.
The gentleman was selling a lifetimes collection of tools acquired from a friend who is terminally ill. He had about 15 boxes full of tools, all carefully wrapped in paper, all in great shape. I sifted through them to get only what stood out to me, (ignoring the full sets of iron bench planes etc., as I have more than I could ever use). Here are a few things I came home with, I think you folks will appreciate most of them:

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Hollows and rounds, ranging from size 7 to 15 (and a size 3 hollow) from various makers, here paired or unpaired based on what I found.
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Some lovely firmer and paring chisels from W. Marples & Sons, with one from Spear and Jackson. Lovely boxwood handles. The one amazing chisel here is the square bolstered mortise chisel on the left - its made by Samuel Newbould. That, and the shape would suggest it is from the late 18th century - over 200 years old! It is just about 1/2" away from the last of the laminated useful steel, but otherwise in great shape, with an interesting user made handle. Some huge, very coarse rasps in background too.
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Stanley 82, and 80 scrapers, and a couple drawknives, one with folding handles. A beautiful wedge arm fillister plane in the background, with a boxwood profile. The only mark it has is a cursive 'Stewart'. Missing a slitter I believe. The fence seems to have some rotation on the rods, is this to allow easier adjustment or should I be tightening the screws at the bottom?
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Rabone 1190 boxwood rule with level and angle markings (though I don't think they are too accurate) and a Rabone & Sons combination square.

[Hasin Haroon]

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A BEAUTIFUL Goodell Pratt breast drill, in great shape.
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The biggest compass I have ever seen (6 inch rule for scale).
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Some wonderful backsaws in the cleanest shape I've ever seen - look at those etches! Also a number of makers I never heard of before, like Jenney Semple, and Thomas Turner, alongside the 'regular' Disston D8s and Spear and Jackson.

[Hasin Haroon]

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And the absolute crown jewel, a Langdon Acme no 74A miter box in perfect shape along with a 26" Disston backsaw. Trying to figure out how to attache a wooden bed to this without having to drill into the base...

[Rick Malakoff]

That is a scary amount of good stuff, I don't know how you were able to bass up the iron planes. I actually have the 1190 that I bought new 40+ years ago.
Rick

[Daniel O'Connell]

Oh my! Looks like you had a great little trip.

I would be...in a lot of trouble if I found collections like that available to often

[Hasin Haroon]

It was tough Rick, but I only went there with $300 in my wallet, and told the seller as much. So we figured out a deal that we were both comfortable with. He just really wanted to clear out the space the boxes took up, and I came home with a wonderful deal for some great tools.

[Matthew Hutchinson477]

Hasin, this is one of the most impressive collections of tools I have ever seen from a rust hunting escapade, and I have been getting pretty lucky myself in recent months. That fellow really cared about his tools. Thanks for sharing.

The wedge-arm plow plane looks awesome with the brass details. I got ahold of one a couple months ago myself and it also has a bit of looseness in the arm/fence connection. I took the screws out, cleaned the whole thing up, and reinstalled the screws with some wax. Even after tightening them as much as I am comfortable with there is some play. I imagine it is just the result of 120+ years of humidity changes, and I don't think it is safe to try cranking down too much on those screws.

[Hasin Haroon]

My wife would kick me out of the house if this was a regular occurence Daniel!

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks Matthew. It is unusual to find so many high quality items in one place. I wish I could afford to offer him a bit more and come home with some more moulding planes, he had a pretty large collection.
I figured as much about the fillister plane. Luckily the plane still functions perfectly when fence is wedged in place.

[Joe Bailey]

Trying to figure out how to attache a wooden bed to this without having to drill into the base...

It appears there are five screws holding each red, metal deck to the frame. Have a look ...

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[Hasin Haroon]

Ah of course Joe. For some reason I never considered removing the metal bed first...I assumed after all these years the integrity of the frame would be somewhat dependent on the metal bed.

[Daniel O'Connell]

My wife would kick me out of the house if this was a regular occurence Daniel!
My wife has been making eyes at me when I come home with $2 chisels from the flea market...I cannot imagine what she'd do if I regularly did something like this :)

On the plus side she was out of the country for 6 weeks so I managed to slip a lot of chisels home where her watchful eye wasn't.

I did have a hit like this a while back, a retiring shop teacher was moving out of state and selling his whole shop. I picked up a dozen or so EA Berg chisels in various states of disrepair and a few other things. Most of my flea market pickups lately have been various other EA Berg chisels...I have this hare-brained notion I'm going to restore\turn them into a full set of bench and skew chisels with nice matching handles and the like.

[James Pallas]

Nice find Hasin. One question. Where is the one $400 tool? :D
Jim

[Hasin Haroon]

Hahaha James, in this case, I came home with many tools, still under $400. Not bad eh?

[Jim Koepke]

Drooling on my keyboard.

When my Newbould mortise chisel was purchased this information was supplied by the seller:


Samuel Newbould is listed as an "edgetool maker" on Sheffield Moor in the Directory of Sheffield for 1787.

Nice find,

jtk

[Hasin Haroon]

I'd love to see a photo of it Jim.

[Jim Koepke]

This is the image from the ebay listing:

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The Newbould is the lower one in the top image. The other is a James Cam from about the same time period.

I have since re-handled both of them. My first attempts at making handles for tang type chisels. Not great handles, but they work.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

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And the absolute crown jewel, a Langdon Acme no 74A miter box in perfect shape along with a 26" Disston backsaw. Trying to figure out how to attache a wooden bed to this without having to drill into the base...

If it's not Aluminum, could you put magnets on the wood to hold it down tightly?

[Frederick Skelly]

BTW, congratulations on a phenomenal find!
Fred

[steven c newman]

There is a problem with adding a wood bed to these type of boxes.....there is a "gib" where the saw cuts...it is part of the swing arm. It is usually flush with the top of the metal plates...a wood bed would impede the use of the swing arm.
BTW: Mine is a Langdon No. 75

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That track is the gib, where the saw tends to ride.
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At the end of a cut.

[Hasin Haroon]

Thanks Steven, something to look out for for sure. I'm thinking a shallow dado in that area would resolve that issue.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

All I can say is WOW.

[Archie England]

That's incredible.