Marples Planes
Tom MacGregor
>Over the past few years I've purchased a number of early English metallic planes, mostly Marples, a few unidentified. All are between 3-1/2" and 5-1/2" long, several are bullnose, one is a Marples 101 clone with a Hibernia blade. None are wedge or infill style or oval base "violin" types. Does anyone know of any source of information on early factory made miniature metallic UK planes? (Now there's a popular subject for you!)Neither Tony Murland nor Garrett Hack have been able to tell me much of anything. One is like the "tailfin" Marples bullnose on page 160something in the Handplane Book (next to a Victor block)and came from an immigrant English shipbuilder's toolchest down in Connecticut. The dateable tools in the chest were about 1860 to 1890.