Owner's mark or not?
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Maker’s marks are usually applied once, say on the nose of a wooden plane. Owner’s marks on the other hand may be applied once or all over a tool–there’s not much uniformity.
I’m wondering about the two grind marks across the Wm Marples imprint on the chisel in the attached picture. I got it on eBay and the seller said an owner had put them there. Why would an owner do that? If I owned the tool, I’d probably not want to “cross out” a noted maker’s trademark. Could these be cancellation marks put on there by Marples to note a lesser-than-pristine tool (a second)? Other than a Beech? handle rather than boxwood, I don’t see a possible flaw, but I know that a Meissen China plate, for example, will have two grind marks across the logo if it was sold as a second.
In my reading on hand tools I haven’t seen any mention of possible factory cancellation marks. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Bill Warnock
Springfield, VA USAAttachments:
You must be logged in to view attached files.8 August 2016 at 6:42 pm #139214Interesting theory, I have an Ashley Iles 2″ that I bought as a second from them at a tool show, there is no makers mark on the blade and on the bolster there is a deep grind mark to denote that its a second, the only fault with mind is that the tang is not central to the blade but it doesn’t effect the function of the tool I don’t see why an owner would do that to a good quality chisel, he would just stamp his name in the handle surely. I do have a Maprles sash mortice chisel with an ash handle instead of the trad boxwood, but they did offer all their chisels with different handle materials if i remember correctly.
Matt
I’m sure that it is an owners mark. When these tools were new there would have been no collector’s value to them – Marples was a massive manufacturer of tools and thousands of them would have been about. But marks like that are excellent for telling when your tools are sitting in someone else’s toolbox!!
Cheers
Mark26 August 2016 at 7:36 pm #139721I would agree from a logical standpoint that a mark like that makes it very easy to see which chisels or tools in general are actually yours, especially if you work in a shop with 10 to 15 other people who got the same or similar tools.
Regards Philipp
Marples were high-volume makers for those days and tools with slight flaws would have been sold cheaply as ‘seconds’, an experienced user would be able to spot one, otherwise it woud have gone to the amateur market.
Mark’s probably right. If the ownwer did not have his own stamp a grind mark would do….. but it was a cardinal sin to touch another man’s tools without permission…. putting in your own box was really serious.
We’ll probably never know for sure. If it is a good chisel, use it.
27 August 2016 at 2:51 pm #139734I have a wooden jack plane that has three saw kerfs across the body behind the handle. I always assumed this was “poor mans” owners mark.
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