This is an interesting plane. There are a couple of owner’s stamps, the front says “E.G.W.” and the back says “A.R.C.” over an “E.G.W.” stamp. Also stamped on the back is “J.S. Rand,” which doesn’t look as crude as most owner’s stamps I’ve seen. J.S. Rand does not appear in the book I use to look up such things, nor could I find anything online. Maybe it was an owner with a nice stamp.
The nicker does have a a patent date on it, however: “OCT 24 82.” The only relevant patent I could find with that date was one granted to Frank A. Rappleye, working for Stanley, that was for a “Carpenter’s Plow.” He says:
“My invention relates to improvements in convertible carpenter’s plow and slitting-tool having an attachable and detachable slitting knife located upon one side of the bottom face of the stock and a fence upon the opposite side of said face.”
The drawing of the nicker in the patent doesn’t look like the one on this plane, but it got me thinking about seeing this nicker before on a Stanley plane and a bit of searching confirmed that: it’s on the No. 46 plow plane (#8 in the diagram).
So, someone put a Stanley nicker on this plane. And someone made the iron from a file, did a pretty nice job. And it’s a hard file, was a bit of a bastard to sharpen. Upon closer inspection, I think this could be a completely user-made plane, or a user-heavily-modified plane.
9 3/8″ L, 15/16″ iron.
