Stung at last

New plane to the left, old plane to the right.

 I have been mercifully lucky with my online purchasing. Up until now.

I bought a Stanley 78 rebate (rabbet) plane on TradeMe, with the intention of repurposing it as a scrub plane. I had bought one a while ago to use in its intended role, so I thought I knew what I was getting; both of them ended up costing me about fifty bucks each. The photos on TradeMe indicated that it wasn't in mint condition, but they didn't reveal the true horror of the situation by any means.

Old plane above, new plane below.

The new plane is.... let's say it's a bit of a disappointment.

It's missing the fence, and it may never have had a depth-stop or nipper. It's missing the lever adjustment for the iron. It has a bodged-together replacement screw to tension the iron against the cap. It has been so corroded that the body looks like it's got woodworm, an indication that the steel its cast from was never of the best quality. It carries a US patent number rather than the English maker's marks, so I assume it's a US copy — probably a licenced copy, since it still bears the Stanley brand, and I suspect it pre-dates my English one.  It's been covered in thick blue paint, probably to disguise the extent of the corrosion.

I will give it one thing: it's got quite a comfortably-shaped grip.

It is probably still usable as I intend, as a scrub plane, though with the pitting of the sole it will never really be as good a tool as I'd hoped. However, if I'd hoped to be able to use it for its original purpose as a rebate plane, I'd be pretty much out of luck without doing a lot of work on it. Probably more work than it warrants.

This is maybe worth five or ten bucks as a curio to put on a shelf to look rustic next to a vase of flowers. I feel that I've been well and truly ripped off.