Vintage wood carving gouges Marples vs. Addis

[diytoolbox]

Are there difference in quality or performance in the vintage tools?
For instance, Marples wood carving gouges Vs. Addis, which ones are better makes?

 

[Trafalgar]

Marples are fine. You need clean, unpitted steel in a vintage tool. That's s/b the first think you look at. Very minor freckling can be ground away, deeper than that -- pass, no matter the name and reputation for quality.

 

[diytoolbox]

Marples are fine. You need clean, unpitted steel in a vintage tool. That's s/b the first think you look at. Very minor freckling can be ground away, deeper than that -- pass, no matter the name and reputation for quality.

Could JB Addis be a much older company? Marples seems to have been making the tools even up until 1970s 80s, and even now, not sure. But Addis seems have ceased producing tools long before.

 

[johnnyb]

Addis had a few branches making carving tools. Ward and Payne also made some of these in sheffield(the others were in London the spiritual home of much victorian carving)
These were amongst the very best carving tools that were made gaining many gold exhibition medals.
Marples were a huge tool maker /reseller. There carving chisels are OK at best and poor in the later forms. They made workmanlike tools in general but in a huge range. The left Sheffield for Dronfield eventually disappearing in corporate buyouts.