I had intended to go to my regular outdoor flea market, but there
was a blizzard outside this morning so I figured that was out of the
question and went running instead. While I was out the storm just
sort of blew away and a beautiful blue day appeared.
So I hopped in the car and zipped off to the market not expecting
much on account of the storm and all, but well you know, it's like
a compulsion, or something. I mean, someone's uncle may have died
and clueless vendor nephew gotten all stuff ! It could be my big
day !
When I got there is was :freezing:. Temperature-wise it wasn't
so bad at -10c (14f) but the market is out in the country in a
multi-screen drive-in theatre parking lot and the wind was fierce.
Weren't too may vendors either but the regulars were there dressed
in their snowmobile suits or sitting in their pickups. I walked
quickly by the junk, recognizing most of it. (did I mention my
friends are pieces of junk at the bottom of grimy boxes under some
vendors' tables out in middle of nowhere ?)
What's this ? New stuff? A vendor I don't recognize. There was
a large beaten-up sidebead (moulding plane, Jeff) on the table so
I went into full reconaissance mode. Behind the table, under the
vendor's trailer, in the snow I see pieces of what appear to be a
mitre box and a saw. Didn't look like much but I crouch down and
look it over. Saw a bit bent right in the middle, the back only,
as far as I can tell. The saw is nothing to write home about, a
Canadian Shurly-Deitrich out of Galt, Ontario but I have a couple
of other ones that might fit.
I couldn't see a name on the mitre box but most of the parts seemed
to be there so I asked the guy how much he wanted. 15$ (cdn) he
says. I didn't bicker, just gave him the money. I glanced very
quickly at the other tables on my way back to the car struggling
not to drop everything what with my hands loosing their grips on
account of being frozen.
Got home, made some room on the bench (I'm cleaning saws these
days, did I mention that ?) and took a closer look. Found a
brass label under the grime. Hey, looks like "Stanley" written
there yes ! The complete label reads :
STANLEY MITRE BOX
FRAME (STANLEY SW) No.50 1/2
THE STANLEY RULE AND LEVEL PLANT
NEW BRITAIN, CONN. MADE IN U.S.A.
This is not a very big mitre box. I have only seen (quickly) one
other Stanley and I remember it as being huge (I seem to remember
it had Stanley written on the columns in big letters). This one
is the size of the NOBEX one that is sold today. A couple of
years ago (before I knew better) I bought a NOBEX clone for a
hundred dollars or something, used it a couple of times to make
sure it was indeed completely useless, then threw it in the garbage.
(It was picked up by some scavenger before the garbage truck came
by, poor guy.)
The mitre box is blue. Heavy iron castings sitting on cute cast legs.
It has an pretty fancy indexing mechanism for the angle, with even a
means to take up slack in the mechanism from wear (at least I think
that's what this off-center hole in the rotating brass bushing housing
the indexing pin is for).
Does anybody know when the SW heart logo stopped being used ? I know
in Canada it just went on being used forever, but didn't it stop in
the 'States at some point ? This would provide me with an upper limit
to the age of the box.
Well, got to go back down and continue cleaning. There are a lot of
parts in a mitre box !
Paul Pedersen
Montreal (Quebec)
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