Yes but you're going to have to immerse yourself a bit in the culture of Stanley planes to be able to reliably spot what's early, what's early and the stuff from later (which in Stanley plane circles is after WW2).El Barto":pj3katdo said:
CStanford has posted the link to one of THE reference sites, you should also look through the rather unfortunately titled Patrick's Blood & Gore.
As you'll see one of the easy reference points for really early ones is the keyhole-shaped hole in the lever cap (prior to a change to a kidney shape), along with no name cast down near the nose. But as lever caps can become separated from the plane they were originally associated with you can sometimes find an older one on a later plane so you have to look at other details as well. Ditto early blades could be in a later plane, later (even present-day) irons could be in an early one because the previous ones were worn down near to the slot, were believed to be too rusted to salvage, or the body just became separated from its iron set.
Don't let plastic handles alone put you off, some decent users are sold with plastic handles. And your Stanley could have the best examples of those going! No kidding. I picked up a plastic-handled no. 4 of English manufacture recently for next to nothing (basically free with the Acorn I was buying) and the material the handles are cast in has a nice feel, but more important than that the rear handle (the part you'll invariably read called a tote on American sources) is the best shape of any of the smoothers I own, actually superior to the later-era rosewood handles that Stanley produced where some compromises were made on shape for reasons of production efficiency, at the expense of ergonomics.El Barto":pj3katdo said:
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