Stanley Bailey no. 4 Type 20

The type 20 was essentially the cheaper version of the plane Stanley produced for stores Like Montgomery Wards And Sears for many years. The finish details for the stores were intentionally cheapened, I think to distinguish the lines. My first plane was a Used WardsMaster my dad bought for me when I was building skiffs as a kid that looked just like the Type 20 but was produced right after WWII. . Parts are completely interchangeable with a type 20, proprietary Stanley screw sizes and everything. The only difference was the lack of the kidney shaped lever cap hole.

The distinguishing traits were the interesting blue color ( apparently Stanley ran out of their 100 year supply of black) , the folded adjuster lever and the folded two piece metal adjuster fork just like the Wardsmaster instead of the cast fork, and a General lack of attention to finish details. The knobs might be a light stained wood. Also, the adjuster screw for the frog may have been left off later ones, but that’s not a big deal. Prized early models and planes produced in the war years didn’t have that feature either. you just don’t adjust frogs often.
Oh yeah.. the iron and cap iron might need more attention to bring up to snuff. They tended to be a bit wavy. temper seems ok, though.

But they can be made to work just fine, the main thing to watch for is that the sole is flat. I have seen several with a pronounced hollow behind the mouth that Stanley didn’t bother to grind out. If you get one of these you have a lot of flattening work in front of you. on some it looks like Stanley stopped grinding the castings at the 40 grit level.