So I was on the auction site the other day shopping for a #3. I found a Type 15 Stanley in good condition for auction ending a few hours later so I went ahead and put in a bid on it. I don't have great luck with auctions and tend to bid too high when I get attached to an item so I put in what I thought was a fairly low bid, not expecting to win, and kept shopping. Later I found a Type 11 in even better condition for "Buy it now" at the same price as I bid on the first one, so I went ahead and bought it. Well, a few hours later the auction on the first plane ended and lo and behold, I won. So now I have two #3s in the mail.

So now the question is what to do with them. Assuming neither has a deal-breaking flaw I'm thinking I'll set up the better of the two (probably the Type 11) as a smoother. I'm not sure what to do with the other. I already have a crappy no-name #4 set up as a scrub plane and I wouldn't want to convert a good plane for that purpose anyway. I've kind of been wishing I had a short jointer for small parts where a #7 is unwieldy. I was thinking a #5 but since I've got a spare now a #3 would work too for really small parts. Or if I can't find a use for it in my shop I may just gift it to a friend.