This will probably not come as anything new to those of you who have been reading along so far. If you’re absolutely honest with yourself, some of what I’ll say may even strike a few chords with you. I’ve been a “collector” since childhood. I don’t know why or what influenced me to be one, but I’m a “collector” to the bone. There must be some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in my DNA that drives me to collect. Ever since I was a young kid, my goal was to “collect the complete set”, and to “have one of every example.” It started with baseball cards in the 1960s and when I stopped collecting them in the 1990s, I literally had Hall of Fame worthy collection. The hunt for the rare card, completing the set, finding the variations, were always on my mind. Educating myself and learning history, facts, figures and anything to do with baseball cards fascinated me.
I’ve never gotten into anything that I didn’t throw myself into 100%. As a teenager I got interested in old cars and woodworking and those “hobbies” have stuck with me for decades. Over the years, a “hobby within the hobby” took hold, and my OCD kicked into overdrive. As much as I love driving and tinkering with old cars, and making projects out in the shop, I found that I really loved the tools for working on the cars and for making things from wood. That’s how I eventually took an interest in hand planes. As you know, I started out using them, but that eventually morphed into collecting them. Me being me, it was almost unavoidable. As my knowledge, and experience grew, so did my collecting habits. I can’t resist complete, clean examples of old planes. I simply can’t walk away from those pristine tools that still retain their original boxes, pamphlets, instructions, etc. I guess it’s a sickness. Maybe some of you can relate to that. Maybe some of you collect things for reasons that only you can understand. I’ve been collecting planes for several years now with no end in sight. The old tool bug has bitten me so hard that in the last couple years, I’ve started actively collecting Sears Craftsman mechanics tools from the 1950s and 1960s. Maybe you’ve seen the Craftsman =V= Tools thread I started on this site?
Anyway, you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. If you look back in this thread to Page 2, Reply 16, you’ll remember that we were discussing razor plane planes. I had a couple that I received from my dad and grandfather, so I featured them in the thread. I thought they would be interesting. Remember? If you take a little time to review that prior post, I stated that I really don’t collect razor blade planes and didn’t really think they delivered on actual performance. During the post, I mentioned that I was missing the curved sole “Little Giant.” At the time I wrote that, I didn’t see myself ever buying that little plane, nor even looking for it………. but then I came across this. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was doomed. Still, I tried to resist it, and I tried to tell myself that it was outside of my collection’s primary focus. But who was I kidding? It hit EVERY aspect of collecting that I hold near and dear to my OCD riddled heart. It’s a complete, never used set of planes with original packaging, sales pamphlets, and instructions. From a rational tool user’s standpoint, I really view them almost as toys, and I know that I’m NEVER going to use these planes!!! As some of you know, and may be willing to admit, the rational tool user in you, and the tool collector in you can be in conflict. In my case, the “collector” usually wins the argument.
Jim C.
