Help ID my first wooden handplane

[Todd Ferrante]

Back in mid-May my wife and I visited Columbus, OH for a family event. We had a free morning before catching our airplane back to VA, and she wanted to hit a couple antique shops along the way. Whenever we visit antique shops in Virginia where we live, I'm always amazed at the prices people attempt to charge for the blown out pieces of crap handplanes they dig from the dirt. Well, I finally stumbled on one I was willing to buy.


This plane is in the best shape of any wooden plane I've seen except brand new ones. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be a modern reproduction of some kind. The wood is in that good of shape. Also, the screw holding on the tote has a philips head, which wasn't even invented until the 1930's. I'm usually pretty good with google, but I've found very little by searching on the makers marks.

Mark on the iron:


Mark on the chip breaker:


The body is 2.5 inches x 2.5 inches x 19 inches long. Total weight is 6 lb 3 oz. The wood of the body is dark, heavy and dense, but doesn't look to be as fine grained as the rosewood totes on my Stanleys, though it does have a reddish hue. The handle looks mapley, and I could swear the wedge is pine.

The iron had a nice hollow ground bevel and while not razor sharp, the edge had no nicks. I put a scary sharp polish on the blade back and secondary bevel, and the plane cuts like a dream. I had wondered for a while now what the difference was between a thick, old style plane iron, and the thinner blade of a Stanley. Now I know. Not a bad souvenir for 25 bucks.

One interesting detail is that the chip breaker is bare metal, while the iron seems to have been blued to resist corrosion. On the back side of the iron, there was a sharp line where it looked like the bluing had been masked from the lower half inch, where the blade back would be polished.

If anyone has any ideas where this plane comes from, I'd sure like to hear them. If I had to invent a back story I would say it was well used, but never abused. Maybe by a hobbiest woodworker who built the plane himself in the 1960's around an older plane iron / chip breaker. It was kept in a garage shop and ended up in the antique store after an estate auction, where it sold for far too little.

Here is a closer look at the throat. It looks to have some sort of repair on the inside of the right cheek. Maybe from a mistaken cut when the plane was made? It certainly doesn't adversely effect the cutting performance of the plane.


Thoughts?

Todd F.

[harry strasil]

I am no expert, but I do use woodies, at 19 inches its probably a trying plane and it has a Razee style handle that could have been a later addition. Most Good old woodies were beech. use a candle to make a wavy line on the sole to make it slick, Woodies were traditionally either soaked in a barrel of BLO or had the mouth sealed with putty and BLO poured into the cavity till it wouldn't take any more, this was to give it weight and also made it self lubricating.

[Bill Houghton]

The bottom picture seems to show a glue line on each side (flank) of the body, as if the plane was made by cutting off a strip on each side, cutting the mouth, and gluing these strips back on (referred to these days as Krenovian, although I don't think he originated the approach). Is that so? If so, it might help those more familiar with plane history than I to date it.

The iron's clearly French (or, at least, with a little searching on "Goldenberg/French," I found references to French tools under this name), for what that's worth.

[george wilson]

The iron is French,if I recall correctly. The body looks like a European style,possibly user made. The "moulding" around the edge is European looking,and the line is not a lamination,just a termination of the rounded edge. My memory isn't good tonight,but I seem to recall that moulding on Dutch planes


You can find wooden planes in much better shape in places like Pennsylvania flea markets.markets.

[Todd Ferrante]

At first look, there do seem to be seam lines where different pieces of wood were glued up. In fact, when I bought the plane I believed this to be the case. But, when I sat down in some strong light and closely examined the body, I found that what looked to be seams are actually scratch marks. The four edges around the top face are rounded. Halfway down the four vertical edges, they are chamfered. The lower half of the vertical edges and the perimeter of the lower face are square corners. The scratches appear to be layout lines for the rounded and chamfered edges. The scratches terminate halfway down the vertical edges at the ends of the chamfers. The body of the plane is carved from a single piece of wood.
Todd F.

[Charles R. Smith]

Here's a bit that I learned about Goldenberg. If you're interested, I've made a translation based on some French and German sites, using my high school German and French (which was over 40 years ago!)...

Gustav Paul Friedrich Albert Goldenberg was born on 10 May 1805. His father, Jean Guillaume (or, in German, Johann Wilhelm) Goldenberg (7 December 1778 to 18 February 1858), was born in Bliedingshausen but for political reasons the family went to Bärenthal in the Lorraine district of France (the Alsace-Larraine districts along the French-German border changed hands on a number of occasions). The father worked as the Director of the Iron Works which Jacques Coulaux had purchased in 1818. Presumably Gustav learned metallurgy from his father.

In 1818 Gustave went with his father to Molsheim. Gustave’s career began in a small workshop where side arms were manufactured. Because of difficulties with orders, he used his metallurgical knowledge to produce tools, and started his first factory in 1835 in Dorlisheim in Alsace. A second one followed in 1837 in Zornhoff near Saverne. Initially only files were manufactured, but later a more general line of tools was made, including saws, plane irons, coffee mills, and agricultural equipment. The first catalogue was published in 1838.

The company 'Goldenberg et Cie’ (Goldenberg and Company) was formed in 1850. It was cited in the "Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations" held in London in 1851, under the category of “hardware and edge-tools”.

Around 1870 a new factory in Tronville en Barrois was begun, having the name “French Tool Works formerly Goldenberg and Company”. At the same time, the main factory in Zornhoff changed its name to “Alsacian Tool Works formerly Goldenberg and Company”.

Following World War I, the two companies joined and in 1924 were renamed “The Former Companies Goldenberg and Co.” Tool sales decreased between the two wars, in part because of competition with the French tool company Peugeot Frères (Peugeot Brothers), and in part because of stiff competition with American manufacturers.

In the 1970’s, Goldenberg merged with Peugeot Frères to become the SICFO company . It was taken over by the British arm of Stanley in 1986, and the Goldenberg trademark ceased to be.

Charles (who just acquired his first Peugeot Frères plane)