Stanley, Bailey and Record

After a little bit of research I discovered that Leonard Bailey was an American inventor of hand tools and that the Stanley Company bought his patents and company in the late 19th century. There was a falling out, but Stanley continued to use the name Bailey on it's planes, which explains it's presence on the try-plane I was talking about (I think that this is probably known as a jointer plane or fore plane in other circles).

Stanley is an American tool manufacturer. Record, on the other hand was a British company in Sheffield if my memory is correct. But Stanley did manufacture planes in the UK. It's possible that the blade is a replacement blade, but there may be more to this story. I'll have to see if I can find a serial number or model number somewhere on the plane. 

Having checked an 'old tools' website, some of these planes are worth between £70 and £140. Although there are plenty of other places where they go for a lot less than that. I'm not actually interested in the price because I have no intention of selling this plane.

My particular plane is a Stanley Bailey No. 6. Made in the USA, it has the kidney shaped screw hole in the lever cap rather than the keyhole design my other planes carry. There's date or patent information I can see. It has wooden handles.

I'm so glad I kept this from among all the things I found in my Dad's garage after he passed away. There were a couple of other planes I found. One is a standard jack plane, a No.4 smoothing plane I think. And then there was a shoulder or rebate plane by Woden with various bits missing.

I might just do a little research on these too.