Help With Info On Plane Maker and Hand Plane > I.Cox

[JFry]

Hey All>
I found this plane in a barn on my wifes family farm in Gates County North Carolina and after cleaning it up a bit I found the makers Mark ( I.Cox) did some research on line but couldn't find much info besides that he was a early 19th century plane maker from the UK and he sold alot of his hand planes to cabinet makers here in the US. Not sure how it ended up here but I know that my wife's grandfather was carpenter back in the early 1900's.
I know little to nothing about planes so was hoping someone could tell me waht kind of plane it is and something about the maker. I have attached a picture of hand plane and the makers mark ( hard to see)

Thanks in advance for any help / info you can provide. ( My curiosity is getting the better of me)
John Fry
Holly Springs North Carolina
USA

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Hello John, and welcome to the forum!

Consulting 'British Planemakers from 1700' by W.L.Goodman, there are several entries for John Cox (the 'I' in the maker's mark usually reads as a 'J' in late 18th and early 19th century marks - another famous one being 'IOHN GREEN', the mark of John Green of York). The later ones, dating to the latter part of the 19th century, use a maker's mark 'JOHN COX', so your example is one of the earlier ones. The very early (which has the 'I' above 'COX' in the mark) date from about 1770-1801, but this one seems to be consistent with the mark used 1801-1843. His business was located in High Street, Deritend, Birmingham.

There were several quite productive makers in the Birmingham area at the time, as it was then a rapidly developing industrial centre. Before the coming of the railways and relatively cheap transport, things tended to be made close to where they were needed (hence several prominent makers in London, Newcastle, York, Glasgow Bristol and Liverpool); that changed from about 1850 onwards, with Sheffield becoming the predominant centre of British edge tool manufacture.

That's an unusual plane. It looks like a panel-raising plane, but the depth stop on the side is quite a rarity. It's a shame it's lost it's iron and wedge, as the iron in particular may have had a maker's mark which may have told us a bit more - but that's the way of the world!

I hope one of the really knowledgable people round here turn up to tell us what that depth stop is about - AndyT? Rich Arnold?

 

[AndyT]

I'm no more knowledgeable than many others - but that's a nice old plane. Can we see a shot of the end? I read somewhere that English makers stuck with a general purpose flat soled plane for panel raising while it was in the US that the other pattern found favour - with steps in the sole to automatically make the transitions on a raised panel between flat margin, the slope and the central shoulder.
Also, can you show the depth stop in detail - if it is a depth stop - I'm wondering if there is a nicker blade in there, to sever the fibres when cutting across the grain.

 

[JFry]

Thank you both for the great info !!!
I will go home after work today and take a couple of pictures with some more detail.
The area in which my wife's family is from ( Coastal NC region) was settled by English colonists in the early part of the 1700's so perhaps that is how it ended up in her grandfathers possession. Her family has been farming the homestead since 1835.

Thanks again for all the help !

 

[JFry]

Here is a picture of the end and the bottom of the plane. I did not see a blade in the depth stop