Chillylulu,
That looks like an NOS plane if I ever saw one. Just running it over a piece of pine a few times really doesn't devalue the plane from a collector's standpoint. If the iron still has the original factory grind on it, pristine unaltered finishes are present over 99% of the plane, and it retains all of its original parts, the plane is still NOS in my book.
As for the box, well, you saw the box that came with the #6C I posted above. It was a little beat up, but still mostly intact. Mint condition boxes certainly add to the value of an old tool. More often than not however, the box, while damaged, is probably the main reason for the tool's amazing condition many decades later. It takes the abuse while protecting the tool inside. I have fair number of planes in their original boxes, but only a handful of those boxes are truly gem mint examples. Paper and cardboard boxes containing relatively heavy items, in a shop environment, usually don't hold up too well over a long period of years, unless there was a conscious decision by the tool's owner to handle the box with care. If a tool was used frequently, in and out of the box, over time, the boxes usually self destructed. When looking for old planes, even user quality planes, I'm always drawn to those in a box. I always hope to open the box and find a tool that was never used. Usually that's not the case. Still, the very existence of the box tells me that the prior owner valued the tool, and consequently thought enough of the tool to protect it in its box. Based on my experience, a "user" tool in a box is usually in better condition than the same tool from the same era that was not stored in a box. Maybe we'll talk more about boxes in a future post.
That's a great looking, NOS, collector quality plane. Thanks for the pictures!
Jim C.
