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260608 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑05 early stanley boxes
i picked up a stanley 48 match plane (very early, beaded knob, japanned,
but with the patent date cast in rather than stamped on the sole) yesterday
at the alameda flea market.

it came in a wooden box, with the correct paper label on the end.  are
there any tell-tales to say if it's an actual original wooden box, rather
than a box that was made/adapted to fit, then had the label slapped on
there?

from all i can find stanley started using pasteboard boxes ca. 1900.  the
48 was introduced in 1875, and became nickel plated around the same 1900
year per the b&g.  would it have shipped in a wooden box prior to that?
has anyone seen such a thing?

i'll post pictures on GIC tomorrow.

best,
bill
felton, ca
260609 Brent A Kinsey <brentpmed@c...> 2016‑12‑05 Re: early stanley boxes
Both of my 45's came in wooden boxes with wooden cases inside to hold the
cutters and one of them is a later model without the flower/vine design cast
into it.

Perhaps they used the wooden boxes on their heavier planes or those with
multiple parts.

$0.02

Brent

Sent from my iPad
260610 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑05 Re: early stanley boxes
i was just looking at a picture kirk took.  he also got something nib, from
another maker...yet the boxes are similar.  and mine uses nails to hold the
corners, rather than finger joints...so i'm betting it's nonoriginal.  i
will be curious what people say once i post pics...
b
260611 Michael Blair <branson2@s...> 2016‑12‑06 Re: early stanley boxes
The Stanley wood boxes I've handled have all been made of chestnut.  The
chestnut blight of 1906 put an end to that.  I think it is most likely
your box is authentic (roughly, from memory, finger jointed, about 1/16
inch thick stock).  That's what a friend's 3rd model 45 came in, and
another friend's dowel machine. 

Mike in Woodland
260612 Michael Blair <branson2@s...> 2016‑12‑06 Re: early stanley boxes
My #45 cutters are in poplar boxes -- same as the cutters in the
chestnut boxed 45. 

Mike in Woodland
260613 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑06 Re: early stanley boxes
sorry, i might have written it poorly.  i think it's *not* original
*because* it's not finger-jointed; it's nailed.  and it's similar to the
box kirk's doohickey came in, so possibly the same owner made boxes and got
labels for them...

best,
bill
felton, ca
260634 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
i've uploaded pictures of the box, the stanley 48 (metal match plane,
jeff), and a stanley leaflet from 1890 or so to GIC.

http://galootcentral.com/component/option,com_copperminevis/Itemid,2/pl
ace,thumbnails/album,767/">http://galootcentral.com/component/option,com_copperm
inevis/Itemid,2/place,thumbnails/album,767/

if anyone has an opinion on the box, the plane, or the paper, i'll be glad
to hear it.  i paid $40 for it all.

best,
bill
felton, ca
260635 Michael Blair <branson2@s...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
Bill, you have a real winner there.  I notice that the board with the
label appears to be different from the rest of the box.  Since I find it
hard to imagine laying one's hands on a homeless label, I wonder if the
original box got badly damaged so that the owner build a new box,
keeping the panel with the label.  Your 48 has the old style of handle
(Scott G probably has something to say about that), and the leaflet
shows other planes with the same, as well as the floral castings from
the early days. 

$40?  I'll give you $50...  Yeah, fat chance. 

Mike in Woodland
260636 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
Bill

Twice I have seen, for sale, a 45 (combination plane, Jeff) in a user-made
wooden box with the labels from the original pasteboard box glued on them.  One
just had the “45” in the notched rectangle, and the other had all of the label.
Not sure how they got the label off.

Ed Minch
260637 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
michael, that's a trick of the light.  it's the same wood.  and i'm very
happy to have it at this price :D

ed, in researching this over the past couple days, the pasteboard boxes
didn't come around until about 1900; that's also around the time they
switched to nickel plating on the 48.  it is possible this was one of the
last of the japanned 48s, and came in one of the first pasteboard boxes.
see, the label feels thicker than i'd expect a paper label to feel.  it
wouldn't surprise me if they trimmed it off the early box, and pasted it on
to their home-made box.

in any case, it means my union 41 is for sale :)

best,
bill
260638 Matthew Turner <turnershells@h...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
Great to find this thread at the moment. I'm in the middle of building six
reproductions of a type 1 or 2 (there is no fence) Stanley 45 box, finger joints
and all. They're to house my 45's, 46's and lone 47. Eventually I'd like to
build boxes for my 41's, 43, 141 and 444 - but I need decent measurements to
start with.


There were reproduction boxes and labels made in the 1990's, and I saw a #7 go
for a premium at auction because of the box. None of the dealers present bid on
it. Those boxes were ash, and the labels printed in dark green. Yours definitely
isn't one of those. Personally, I'm not worried about a good copy fooling anyone
- I use my planes and have never re-sold one. Having them boxed just adds value
to me as the owner.


I hate to ask, but could you post some of the critical measurements and maybe a
head-on view of the label? I've also got a 48 and 49 to box...


Regards,


Matt Turner
260639 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑07 Re: early stanley boxes
matt, watch this space tomorrow.

bill

On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Matthew Turner 
wrote:
260640 Michael Blair <branson2@s...> 2016‑12‑08 Re: early stanley boxes
Ah.  So it appears to have been cut from the pasteboard box.  With a
little effort it probably could have been steamed off since mucilage was
almost certainly the glue used.   

Mike in Woodland
260643 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑08 Re: early stanley boxes
matt,

the inside dimensions (l x w x h to the bottom of the lid rebate) are 10
3/8 x 6 1/16 x 1 15/16.  this allows the plane to touch all four sides,
barely, on the angle you can see in the GIC images.

speaking of which, i put up a better shot of the label.  tough to get a
good shot, it's pretty faded.

bill

On Wed, Dec 7, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Matthew Turner 
wrote:
260650 Thomas Conroy 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Mike in Woodland wrote "Ah.  So it appears to have been cut from the pasteboard
box.  With a
little effort it probably could have been steamed off since mucilage was
almost certainly the glue used."

Or soaked off; back when only natural adhesives were used, I think it was common
knowledge that you could dump a pasted-on item in hot water for a while, and
have it float free. Not that I would do that with a Stanley label, since some
colored inks are water-fugitive, and their sensitivity can change over time.
Steam would be less dangerous to the ink.

I'd guess the original adhesive was wheat flour paste or hot glue (hide glue),
both of which have production advantages over the ghastly brown mucilage I
remember from my youth, sold in little glass bottles with rubber applicators
that always clogged up and turned brittle, leading you to throw away the bottle
when it was half-full. Mucilage (at least the five-and-dime kind) tends to leave
dark brown stains that are almost impossible to remove. Also, with a
professional production-scale boxmaking set-up you can glue or paste up a number
of labels at once, then put them on before the glue dries; I don't think this
would work with mucilage. By the early 20th century they had gluing machines,
and some of these were made in a one-label size; cute little things that were
probably less than a foot on each side (writing from memory). Or after a certain
point you would have had pre-gummed labels,which I think would have used a
modified hide glue or a dextrin adhesive (dextrin is of plant origin, but highly
modified, unlike mucilage properly so called, which is apparently right out of
the plant).

Back in the day Stanley probably had a pretty big full-time cardboard boxmaking
operation, and my bet would be that they used hot glue, which is cheap, has a
lot of tack and a good open time. Maybe I'd hedge for the later period on boxes
bought in bulk from a specialist firm, with pre-gummed labels.

I once had a book in to restore, where it had been repaired once before, and the
previous restorer had adhered the half-title (the first printed page, before the
title page) to the inside of the front board, a fast, cheap, and fragile way of
doing things. I quoted on the assumption that undoing this and revealinng the
printed page would take about an hour, which it would have done if the previous
guy had used paste or glue. But the guy didn't know his business and used PVA,
so it took me two full days of skill and care to get the half-title up without
skinning away every trace of the printing. I was stuck with my quote, since I
didn't give estimates. I was proud of that one when it was done; but is it any
wonder I hate PVA?
Tom Conroyrambling on
260651 Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Hi Tom
Do you have the capacity to make those 'slide on' decals that Stanley
applied on tool handles?  I have a few tools with the bluish remnants of
these.  They put them on the sides of plane handles, chisels, drills,  and
so on, like many of the tool makers.  A friend of mine  just reproduced one
of the original Marples decals, to put on his restorations- it was a fairly
expensive undertaking apparently, and they ended up costing about thousand
dollars for 350 of them- about $3 for each decal! (Yikes!)  When he is
finished restoring a tool to his satisfaction, he slides on the decal and
it looks 'factory fresh'.)  I'm just curious to know if new technology
makes this less expensive?  It would be cute, but wouldn't make the tools
work any better, and I know many here would hate this, since some
unscrupulous types might try to sell the tools as 'new old stock' or
something.  I don't know anything about printing, so I thought I'd ask!
Cheers from Waterloo
Claudio
260655 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Claudio

I made up a logo for my guitars and have inlaid it in several materials - pearl,
boxwood, and silver.  I like to copy and adapt styles from 1900-1940 or so and
at the time, many manufacturers used a decal under lacquer.  I found a place
that would make the decals for me - you just have to send the artwork to them.

They charged me $51 (2013 prices) for an 11” X 17” sheet with all the logos that
would fit - in my case it is about 30 at a size similar to the Stanley logo and
30 pretty small ones.  They need to have some finish over them as they wear
readily - I don’t know how they compare to the durability of the Stanley decals.

Ed Minch
260656 Thomas Conroy 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Claudio wrote:
"Do you have the capacity to make those 'slide on' decals that Stanley
applied on tool handles?  I have a few tools with the bluish remnants of
these.  They put them on the sides of plane handles, chisels, drills,  and
so on, like many of the tool makers.  A friend of mine  just reproduced one
of the original Marples decals, to put on his restorations- it was a fairly
expensive undertaking apparently, and they ended up costing about thousand
dollars for 350 of them- about $3 for each decal! (Yikes!)  When he is
finished restoring a tool to his satisfaction, he slides on the decal and
it looks 'factory fresh'.)  I'm just curious to know if new technology
makes this less expensive?..." 

I think of a "decal" as being on a clear carrier, where you wet the back with
water and it sticks by itself. I don't know anything about those, not even the
actual plastic used as the carrier.

Paper labels, if I wanted to reproduce a paper label I would color-xerox it and
then paste or glue it on. The colors might be a bit less vibrant and metallic
"gold" would come out as yellow, but you would probably need a sharp eye to
notice, especially under layers of shellac and dirt. I wouldn't mark something I
made with a label, though: they are too fragile, and if I sign something I want
it to last. And if I'm restoring an old tool or a box, I might put a new label
on a box (not a tool) but I wouldn't want it to be a perfect undetectable match
for the original. That is skating a little to close to faking for my taste.

I am guessing here, but I would say that to get a really close match you need to
use the same printing method as the original. If the original was a mass
production method you can have a long set-up time and spread it over so many
units that the price is still very low. If you are printing a fairly small
number for use in restoration, then the long set-up time would weigh much
heavier on each unit. Also, exact color-matching to an original can be extremely
time-consuing, much more so than getting the colors right in the first place, or
doing a second runwhen you have records of the colors and quantities you used.
Between the two you can get an honorable explanation for high price of
reproduction decals. This is just speculation on my part, though.

Tom Conroy
260657 Kirk Eppler <eppler.kirk@g...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
On Dec 8, 2016 7:23 PM, "Claudio DeLorenzi"  wrote:

Hi Tom
Do you have the capacity to make those 'slide on' decals that Stanley
applied on tool handles?



Maybe these?

http://www.decalpaper.com/category-s/3.htm
260659 Brent Beach <brent.beach@g...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Wow!

Galoot decals! Yes!

On 2016-12-09 09:42, Kirk Eppler wrote:
> http://www.decalpaper.com/category-s/3.htm

Got the hat, got the sweatshirt, now the decal!

Brent
-- 
Brent Beach
Victoria, BC, Canada
260660 Bill Webber <ol2lrus@v...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
If paper labels, like the originals, will work for you, they are not to 
difficult to make.  I made these by simply taking a digital picture of 
an original label and then using photo shop to clean up the tears, 
remove ink marks and other blemishes.  These were made at least ten 
years ago on a home printer and have held up well with no cover coating 
of any kind.  I would have thought they would have faded away by now.

http://billwebber.galootcentral.com/1612-006.JPG

http://billwebber.galootcentral.com/1612-004.JPG

Bill W.
In Beautiful downtown Nottingham, PA
260665 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Holy crap - those are beautiful

Ed Minch
260668 Ed Minch <ruby1638@a...> 2016‑12‑09 Re: early stanley boxes
Mike

Since there were other requests I am posting this to the list.

The waterslide decal company is Bedlam Creations, box 548, Charlevoix  MI
49720.  Site:   bedlamcreations.com

Here is a photo of the sheet I got for $51, along with a guitar head with one on
it for size comparison:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/30697206024/in/dateposted-public/

They also make other types of vinyl lettering, etc.

Ed Minch
260669 Mike Rock <mikerock@m...> 2016‑12‑10 Re: early stanley boxes
Ed,
Thank you!!

God bless.

On 12/9/2016 4:35 PM, Ed Minch wrote:
> Mike
>
> Since there were other requests I am posting this to the list.
>
> The waterslide decal company is Bedlam Creations, box 548, Charlevoix  MI
49720.  Site:   bedlamcreations.com
>
> Here is a photo of the sheet I got for $51, along with a guitar head with one
on it for size comparison:
>
> https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/30697206024/in/dateposted-public/
>
> They also make other types of vinyl lettering, etc.
>
> Ed Minch
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 9, 2016, at 6:08 AM, Mike Rock  wrote:
>
>> Ed,
>> Do you have their contact info?  I need decals for Planet Jr. push gardening
equipment.
>>
>> God bless.
>


---
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260670 Don Schwartz <dks@t...> 2016‑12‑10 Re: early stanley boxes
On 2016-12-09 9:14 AM, Thomas Conroy via OldTools wrote:
> I might put a new label on a box (not a tool) but I wouldn't want it to be a
perfect undetectable match for the original. That is skating a little to close
to faking for my taste.

I would go further and say that if you make a reproduction, you should 
mark it as such in some clear, readily detectible and indelible way in 
order to avoid facilitating its use by some unscrupulous individual to 
perpetrate a fraud. Sooner or later those items will fall into the hands 
of someone with no ethics or morals, only to be sold off to a trusting 
enthusiast. It happens in fine art & antiques circles all the time.

FWIW
Don

-- 
Let's all get normal at the luau - 'Frizz' Fuller
260690 Kirk Eppler <eppler.kirk@g...> 2016‑12‑12 Re: early stanley boxes
On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Dragon List  wrote:

> i was just looking at a picture kirk took.  he also got something nib, from
> another maker...yet the boxes are similar.
>

Bill et al

Here is a link to my box, and there follows about 15 pictures of the box
and the beader.

https://kirkhmb.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Tools/Windsor-Beader/

As Bill noted, I no longer think its an original box, there are too many
peculiarities to be factory, like the top of the lid rabbet being a
separate piece, the label on the underside of the lid, odd finger holes,
etc.




-- 
Kirk Eppler in HMB, CA, spent last evening fixing various Christmas lights,
now back to work to catch up after a week of vacation
260693 Brian Welch <brian.w.welch@g...> 2016‑12‑12 Re: early stanley boxes
On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Kirk Eppler wrote:

>
> Here is a link to my box, and there follows about 15 pictures of the box
> and the beader.
>
> https://kirkhmb.smugmug.com/Woodworking/Tools/Windsor-Beader/
>
> As Bill noted, I no longer think its an original box, there are too many
> peculiarities to be factory, like the top of the lid rabbet being a
> separate piece, the label on the underside of the lid, odd finger holes,
> etc.
>

Jim Bode has a Windsor beader in the original pasteboard box and the labels
look the same as yours:
http://www.jimbodetools.com/POOLE-WILLIAMS-CO-s-WINDSOR-Beader-NEAR-
MINT-in-Original-Box-with-RARE-Optional-
Cutter-p52713.html">http://www.jimbodetools.com/POOLE-WILLIAMS-CO-s-WINDSOR-
Beader-NEAR-MINT-in-Original-Box-with-RARE-Optional-Cutter-p52713.html

--Brian
260695 Dragon List <dragon01list@g...> 2016‑12‑12 Re: early stanley boxes
brian, we saw that online at the flea (there's something new compared to
the old days of haunting fleas!).

it was one of the tipping points, i think, in kirk's acquisition.  not that
he was wavering, much.  but it was good ballast.

bill
felton, ca

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 12:57 PM, Brian Welch 
wrote:

Recent Bios FAQ