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Francis Purdew is one of the earliest known English planemakers, active as early as the 1680s up until the late 1720s.This plane is a recent find, hidden at the bottom of a tool chest containing a quantity of poor quality items from the 20th century, needless to say it put…

We’ve added some of our latest old tools and collectables finds to the site today, including:3 infill shoulder planesA Henry Brown braceThe best pair of Varvill side round moulding planes we’ve seenand more…We hope you enjoy looking.Robert LeachOLD HAND TOOLS

When making sash windows, no matter which bar jointing method is used, tradition has always been to reinforce the joints with dowels.The sash dowelling box or jig is used to aid the boring of accurate holes in the end of the bars to locate the dowels.The majority of these boxes…

A lovely set of four early bronze quoits.Believed to be 18th century English but smaller than those typically found in the UK. Whilst quoits is not a game that I have played, a little research reveals that the game of quoits has been around for a very long time. If…

We see plenty of wooden bullnose planes, most of which started life as small smoothers. Either through need or as a result of damage, these have been converted to bullnose form by their owners.This one, however, is a rarer factory produced example sold by tool dealer Richard Routledge of Birmingham.According…

Welcome to the new oldhandtools.co.uk website and our first blog.We have been selling old tools on a well-known online auction site for a number of years (and will continue to do so in the short term) but thought it was time to strike out on our own.Whilst we aim to…