Reply To: Selling of tools

Hello and welcome to the group.
My name is Alan and I have too many planes!

I bought too many tools secondhand, taking advantage of bargains when they came-up at auction, thinking “keep the best & sell the rest”, but I miss owning some I’ve sold on. Not because I needed them or ever used them, I miss the collecting aspect having put so much time & effort into acquiring & restoring them. Perhaps part of the regret is realising I’ll never get around to using specialist tools I had ambition for. We do tend to build an association with tools.

Paul shows us how to get started building fine furniture with the bare minimum of tools. His point being it doesn’t have to be expensive to get started. However, he has a personal set of Stanley planes, Record planes, Woden planes, and is still looking to complete a set of Sorby’s.
He doesn’t use block-planes much, if at all, but has a collection of every one there is, in the cabinet behind him. Paul has brand-new No.4 planes in boxes “just because I like to look at them once in a while” – and that’s after selling £2,000 of surplus tools some years ago!
We all do it.

The best advice I would give is; keep them if you don’t need the space or the money.
Otherwise thin your collection down, but not too much and not too quickly. Keep all your favourites, whether you use them or not. If you use a particular tool once in a blue moon, there’s still a sense of regret when you need it and remember you sold it. People realise the value of nice hand tools that just aren’t being made any more (Disston saws, Preston routers…) If you sell one, it’ll be more difficult to replace it later-on.

Remember: Help is out there!