Atkins Plough Plane

[BobG]

profchris's post of 03/05/2018 spurred me into digging into the workshop boxes to find my atkins plough plane. Looks identical to profchris's except that mine has a thumbscrew adjuster instead of a knob.

A couple of questions:
1. My one is stamped as made by Atkin & Sons, Birmingham. As mine and profchris's are almost identical could they have been made by the same person and stamped by different suppliers?
2. Can you estimate the age more accurately with this additional information?
3. The blades are stamped as made by John Drew. Would he have been the maker of the plane?
4. What does the VR logo on the blades stand for?

I'll get it cleaned up and will post some more pics soon

 

[skeetstar]

With a stamped crown? Victoria Regina.
Why that would be on a plane I have no idea.
If I'm right though (a rarity) that would date the iron to the first week or so of
1901, at the latest.

Could the VR be the equivalent of the later WD broad arrow?

 

[BobG]

Thanks skeetstar,
The VR is on the blades not the plane. So they might be younger than the plane?

 

[Cheshirechappie]

1) Probably not. Plough planes looked pretty much the same from just about all the big (and small) makers. Without doing a very detailed survey of a wide sample of planes I suspect it would be extremely difficult to tell one maker from another except by their stamp.

2) Yes. BPM2 gives dates for Atkin and Son, Barford St, Birmingham, between 1843 and 1854; for Atkin and Sons, Sheffield Works, Rea St, Birmingham, between 1863 and 1900; and for Atkin and Sons Ltd of Rea St (still!) from 1900 to 1966. As your plane is marked 'Atkin and Sons', it is presumably from the Rea St works and post 1863. (Note 0 all dates are 'circa' - more information surfaces all the time, and BPM2 was published with what was known at that date - 1978.)

3) No, John Drew would have been the maker of the blades, not the plane. It was not unusual for a buyer to purchase plane and blades seperately, and when a plane was supplied with a set of blades, the vast majority of makers would have bought them in from others. (I strongly suspect, given the similarity across a range of maker's planes, that they bought in the other metal bits - depth adjusters, fence arm ends, etc - as well. Some of those parts are listed in some catalogues of the time as being available seperately.)

PS - I've not been able to find out anything about John Drew, either as a Sheffield or a Black Country smith or edge-tool maker. Anybody know anything about him?

It's quite unusual to have a near full set of irons still with the plane, and even more unusual that they're all by the same maker - assuming that they are original to the plane. That's rather nice in tooly terms, that is! Normally, the plane with maybe one iron in it goes one way, and the rest of the irons go another, never to meet again. So keep 'em together!

4) As above - Victoria Regina. That dates the blades as between 1837 and 1901 - which doesn't really pin it down much!

Just a thought - could the 'V crown R' mark be a pre-date of the War Department broad arrow mark? Anybody know?

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[Broncolives]

My Great great grandfather was John Drew. His profession was edge tool maker, he was born in Birmigham in 1825 but then left and lived the rest of his life in Sheffield. The mystery is that he appears to still be on the birmingham census along with family in 1881 and he remarried in Sheffield in 1884. in spite of this he is in the sheffield trade directories as having a business at 6 Wicker Lane in both 1859 and 1860.
????????