On 26 Aug 2004 at 11:32, Steve Reynolds wrote:

> The quality stuff is selling, and it is selling for good bucks. Look
> at the Buck Rogers planes, they are off to infinity and beyond. Good
> examples of the rarities are selling well and I think may be
> outperforming the general classification of tools. Common stuff in
> common condition goes
for average prices. However, Randy shares may observation about SOME of
the economy class tools selling for more on the bay than in tool meets
or fleamarkets. If they look cool, they are selling on ebay for
hard-to-understand prices, and this calls into question that quality
axiom. Maybe the quality here is the looks and not the performance? My
problem is now that I have decided to acquire a few, they have
disappeared from the fleamarket. Gotta get to a tool meet soon.

Considering that most sellers on duh bay can't even spell Millers Falls
correctly, it doen't surprise me that they can't distinguish between the
normal bench planes (named for their length) and the cheapo value line
stuff. If you don't know what you're doing, you end up paying too much.
"Oh, I heard Millers Falls made good planes so this must be worth a lot"
despite it being a lowly 814, which wouldn't make it in the door of my
shop. The other MFs would just kick it right out again, and there are so
many of them that they wouldn't have any trouble either.

Not just having an MBA morning (that's Mr. Bad Attitude) but I saw one
listing strongly suggesting that Fulton planes are really good quality
stuff. Now, we know that Fulton planes were made by lots of good makers,
including my beloved Millers Falls. But good gracious people - it was
the lowest of the three lines sold by Sears, or at least the lower of
the two before Dunlap got invented by Mr. Dunlap of the Marketing
Department to fill a niche.

The ability to distinguish between high quality lines and economy
lines is clearly in somewhat short supply in the marketplace. No
offense to any new galoots who have not yet learned this stuff; we all
started out knowing essentially nothing. But it just goes to prove the
value of study.

-Ken, who paid way too much for his first bench plane dut to general
cluelessness at the time

Ken Greenberg (ken@c...) 667 Brush Creek Rd., Santa Rosa, CA 95404
http://www.calast.com/personal/ken/wood.htm Visit the oldtools book list
at http://www.calast.com/personal/ken/booklist.htm