>Been looking at this for a couple days. Thought about taking a shot, but didn't. (Two things bug the hell out of me on these: 1) nearly all the old infills are in Great Britain, and 2) either shipping is 40-60 GBP ($74-$110) with various restrictive clauses about payment, OR, the seller says nothing about shipping at all.)
Anyway, I think it's a striking design and the price is right. Too me it looks professionally made. The screw is a Mathieson look-alike. The wood looks great. The coffin shape and the side contour are in wonderful harmony. Can anyone put a name to the maker?
>I read somewhere that the infill makers would sell their castings to craftsmen who would then complete the tool by making their own infill parts. Might this plane fit into the 'craftsman made' category? The seller thinks so.
>The open tote and front infill are similar to that used by Spiers, as is the lever cap. The cap screw is more Mathieson. The body looks craftsman - too wide for either Spiers or Norris in the area that support the rivets.
>Shipping from the UK comes down to if the seller knows any thing about shipping over seas and if the plane is light enough to get it under the 4# small packet weight. when I bought mine frome over there the seller was smart enough to ship the blade seperatly to get it undeer the weight limits and save me some money The plane body shipped for about $10 and the blade was shipped in a small letter packet for about $4.50. I don't know who the maker of yours is but mine was craftsman made. I works like a dream.
Ernie, I wonder if you recall any of the details, e.g. what shipping service, etc?
I'd love to be able to email a seller several days before auction end with a statement like:
"I'll bid high on this plane if, instead of 60 GBP for shipping, you can confirm that you'll ship via Ajax shipping in two parcels. The body is under 4 pounds, which would cost $10. The blade goes in an envelope for $4.50.
With the two packages, go to the corner of X and Y, talk to Jim. I'll agree to $10 extra for handling and your trouble. That is, total shipping & handling $24.50.
Remember, I'll bid this plane up much higher than it'll reach without me bidding...if you agree to my shipping terms. You'll come out vastly better with me bidding whether or not I become the high bidder."
A little aggressive, I suppose. I could polish up the language, but you get the idea.
>Ed, my general impression of sellers is that they fall in 4 groups: 1) accurate and knowlegeable, 2) simple and stupid, 3) conservative and conscientious, and finally 4) the hyperbolic hucksters. Often there's evidence of intermarriage and consanguinity among these tribes.
To me, what the seller says about the maker doesn't account for much.
Case in point: in the last year or two a USA seller put up a pristine infill that looked like any Mathieson I've ever seen. But he didn't make any speculations and had it in an atypical Ebay category with a title word "Plane". I won the auction for $200! There were no other bidders! On receiving it, I found a very faint bun stamp from Mathieson (you probably have to have seen the impression before and know where and how to look...but it's not anything magical).
I later emailed the seller to say how happy I was and that it was a Mathieson. He said, "Yes, I was certain it was, but couldn't prove it. I'm so happy someone got it who might appreciate it." At the time, similar planes were routinely fetching $350-450. He was more interested in being scrupulously honest and hoped someone would love the plane as he had. God bless him.
>I think the person you got the $200 Mathieson from would certainly fall into your no. 2 group of "Simple and stupid" !
...I fail to see how saying that you think but am not sure that the plane was a Mathierson would be any less honest since apparently this is what the seller thought ...and he was right in the end.Only a slow head sells and describes something like he did which resulted in that you got a good below market price deal and he cheated himself out of the $150-$200 in the process.Always interesting to see ineptness in action I suposse but I don't think we should ascribe any nobility to it.
One thing I noticed in the above auction was that the seller charges a 4% fee on those that pay with paypal. I did not think this was allowed.Am I wrong?.......Todd
>"The body looks craftsman - too wide for either Spiers or Norris in the area that support the rivets."
Not to take this too far, Derek, but I wonder if many folks wouldn't say this illustration from Lampert's book depicts a craftsman made infill based on the look of the body contour. Certainly not a Spiers infill.
The more I learn about vintage infills, the less I "know".
Lampert's book on Spiers includes other "Planemakers of Ayr". To wit: James Miller c.1837, Richard McLauchlan c.1841-1851, George Rutherford c.1845-1863 and Thomas Limond c.1886-1955. How many others there were that didn't reach Lampert's book, I don't know.
When I was a teenager there was a young kid in the neighborhood who'd wander into our yard. He had a penchant for discovering insects. "What's this", he'd ask. It felt masterful to say, "Why, Johnny, that's an earwig." Eventually, he found things I'd never seen and couldn't name. I became bored with him. Some years later I came to realize there were entomologists in the world, complex taxonomies, and a labyrinth of Latin names. One is continually humbled.
>It is royal postal service. they have a small flat rate air mail packet anything under 4 pounds weight with some demension restrictions. they also have a small letter packet that ships for about $5 US simular to the US international flat rate shipping envelope that you can ship in. I don't know what the Royal postal web page is but I would think they would have the details there. I know I can ship a #4 almost any where in the world for under $10 thanks to them things. I just sent 5 carving chisels to Australia for $4.50 on monday the winner was suprised and happy.
>You are right - there are no absolutes in this game. This infill could be anything. I should have said, this does not fit the picture of the typical Spiers I have seen. For example:
This is an 1880s unrestored Spiers, complete with the more ornate cap screw (which is more rounded than the Mathieson verson):
This is the Spiers I modelled the renovation of my own on:
>I can see that from one perspective, the seller seems #2, simple and stupid. But I thought of him as #1 and #3: accurate, knowledgeable, conservative and conscientious. I think he may have been hoping to avoid hassles and conflicts by not leading anyone on by saying, "This is surely a Mathieson but I'd don't see any signatures or marks." But I don't really know. Simple and stupid is an option, as you say.
As to his being "less honest", "a slow head", and "cheating himself" or to his "ineptness", I didn't notice any evidence of those, apart from inferences drawn from his not being too exercised about the money. The concept of "nobility" wasn't part of what I was thinking.
Todd, reading your comments, I remember an old discussion about the "$5 old widow w/Bailey #1 fable". Since then, as I read your posts, I've come to see that if I think about your point of view, I eventually see a sort of truth in what you say. I used to think you were almost always wrong; now, I think you're almost always right. It was the word, nobility, delivered nearly as an accusation, that reminded me of all this. I must have seemed to you like some kind of bogus fart in a sanctimonious state of piety at the time. If so, I regret it. But, alas, we are what we are.
I'm sorry, I don't know anything about the 4% issue.
(Also, forgive me, all, for churning this topic so much, but like chumming fish, I'm still trying to attract a big group to look at the original post with the hope someone might step forward and say, "Slow head! That's an obvious example of an 1850's Schwarzenegger infill".)
>I got mine 2 years ago the rates could have gone up? My brain don't remember as well as it used to? We are both planing on a bench that isn't flat. The fact remaines that it can be shipped cheaper than is usualy quoted bet not many people know about the small packet rates.
you are correct about the shipping. I had a mathieson sent to me in two parcels as you describe, body in one, blade in another by the dealer, who suggested it as it was a way of avoiding the prohibitive shipping costs out of the UK. Once upon a time Royal Mail would post things more than 5lbs via surface but those days appear gone.
>I bought one very similar, without the elaborate clamp screw, but the body, tote etc are near to this one. I can't see a maker's mark on the body. The cap iron is marked Mathieson, the blade was however worn out, and the tote is cracked, needs mending. Nothing else is wrong to my untrained eye.
I paid �4, about $6, last month, so I guess it qualifies as a maybe gloat.
I have tried it with a Clifton Victor blade borrowed from my No5, and a packing piece behind it to close the mouth right down. Seems to work nicely, but not a revelation yet.
Might get to post a pic next week, if anyone is interested.
