Hello all,
I recently acquired a vintage Stanley Bailey No. 3. The exposed iron is very dark gray, almost black - am I correct in thinking this is probably due to treatment with naval jelly or some other phosphoric acid-based rust remover? Second, the tote appears to be made of some sort of hard rubber (it feels quite a bit like ebonite). There's also a faint mould line at the top of the tote. Did Stanley use rubber totes at some point? I know they sold replacement hard rubber ones in the pre-war years, but this doesn't have the "B o E" mark that those apparently had.
Cheers!