New Britain, Connecticut · 1857–present

Stanley hand tools

Henry Stanley founded the Stanley Rule & Level Company in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1857, and in 1869 it bought Leonard Bailey's plane patents. Bailey had been building his iron planes in Boston through the 1860s, and the design Stanley took over is still made today. Stanley's own people, Justus Traut among them, kept adding to the line, and by the 1880s Stanley was the biggest toolmaker in America. In 1902 it started casting BAILEY into the plane bodies as a tribute to the inventor. In 1920 the company merged with its cousin's firm, the Stanley Works, and the heart-shaped Sweetheart logo on irons from those years came out of that merger. Collectors date the bench planes with a Type Study of 20 numbered versions running from 1867 into the 1960s.

24 models we cover.

How to spot one in the photos

Check the iron's stamp, the lever cap and the body casting. BAILEY is cast into the body from 1902, and from 1925 lever caps carry STANLEY in a notched rectangle. Irons around 1910–1918 have a V-shaped STANLEY NEW BRITAIN CONN. U.S.A. logo, irons from about 1920 to the mid-1930s have the Sweetheart logo (STANLEY over a heart with S.W. inside), and later irons drop the heart. A blue-painted body means 1962 or later. A bright decal on the left side of the tote dates from the 1920s, and reproduction decals have a darker blue-green background than the original aquamarine.