Find the best deals at the antique store.Posted by Pearson Clemensen on May 13th, 2021 Mayon focus is that the lens, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the shop. It is January here in northeastern Ohio, and that means that all the places I usually do my tool, hunting estate sales tag, sales, flea markets and farm auctions. Those things are off the table because it is too damn cold outside. So in the winter I move all of my tool hunting in to antique stores. I know what you're saying Rex, antique stores are the worst for tool: hunting the selection sucks. The prices are sky. High, I never get anything decent at those places and believe me, I understand it's not easy, but if you know what you do it, if you've got a couple of simple techniques up your sleeve, you can find some excellent deals and antique stores, and it is gon Na take more work than some of the other places, we've gone to a hunting, but it's worth it because what's the alternative, just not buy any tools all winter, you know, honestly, don't even joke about that. That'S not funny! This week I went to the i-76 antique mall in Ravenna, it's the largest one in northern Ohio, and I go here in the winter instead of wasting my time at a bunch of tiny mom-and-pop stores, and this place is anything but tiny. Its enormous. It'S got hundreds of vendors and it takes me a couple of hours to walk the whole thing now, when your tool hunting at antique stores, there are two things that drive up the prices for you. The first is any tool, that's pretty so, for instance, here I have a lovely screw arm flower plain that I bought at a flea market for $ 35. It'S a great deal. The problem with a tool like this is that it's just too attractive. It looks too cool sitting on somebody's mantle, and so prices are always going to be bumped up on stuff like this, because the people at antique stores they're not selling this as a tool they're selling this as home decor and that's always gon na bump up the Price to a place where you don't want to pay. The second problem you have is any tool that can be googled. So here is my trusty stanley, Bailey four and a half plane, and this plane is going for sky-high prices on ebay right now, and that means the prices in the antique store. They'Re gon na be really high too, because the company name and the model number are cast right in here. That makes it easy for any idiot to go on the internet figure out what it's going for, mark it up and then slap that price on it. So in general I would forget about getting any tool like this any metallic plane or any tool. That'S got the name and model number right on it. You'Re gon na have to be a little craftier and look for some different stuff. So, right after I get into the store, I immediately find a stall with good tools. These transitional and metallic planes would make solid workers, but you can find them on the internet and they're a tiny bit collectible so they're way. Overpriced. Then there's also this lovely wooden plane and I often get great deals on wooden planes, but it's got the much-hyped Marples name on it, so it is also very, very overpriced. I'M not gon na be going home with this thing, but antique shopping is a lot like going to the flea market. You find the best prices on the hidden gems. Instead of getting discouraged by the high prices on the table. I get down underneath to check out the stuff. The seller doesn't value. Look what I find right away. A great little Sargent solvus every hand, tool woodworker needs one of these and they're not always affordable or easy to find this one's a good compact size complete, totally working, and it's only 18 dollars. That'S a great price. If you're in the market. Now it's got the name and the model number cast right in there. So why isn't the seller charging more money? Probably because sawn vices are ugly, and so they wouldn't look good nailed to the wall of the TGI Fridays. On the lower shelves of these stalls, you can find useful tools that just aren't visually exciting. So here we've got a couple of draw knives and several molding plants. These Plains, especially don't hold up well in the flea market environment when I find them they're, often too damaged to bother with, but here in a climate-controlled store, they're in good shape and eighteen dollars is a decent price for a tool that you're actually going to use. Now this hyperlink has a whole rack of boring, looking tools like hammers, mallets axes and hatchets. Many of these are specific specialty tools, but the seller often doesn't know that, and that gives you an opportunity to get a bargain. If you need a hewing hatchet or a brass hammer at any big store like this you're gon na find a few vendors who specialize in old tools and of course you want to check those stalls over very carefully because you never know what they've got. You never know when you might get a surprise deal, but don't ignore the other vendors. Anybody who specializes in old junk might have a couple of tools that are right for the picking. So look at this vendor nothing but tacky colored glass. You might go right by, but on this middle shelf, there's a jumble of useful old tools. It'S obvious, the vendor doesn't care about these and just threw them in a pile. The thing that really catches my eye is this little craftsman bit Brits. It'S a compact size with the universal chunk and it's an excellent condition. The asking price of $ 25 is on the high side, but this is an outstanding tool and I find the small ones are kind of rare. If you need a good bit brace to go in a travel toolbox, this wouldn't be a bad deal and right here on the shelf are plenty of solid old, wrenches and other bits to go through. Who knows what you might find if you're willing to dig a little bit now as you're? Looking don't forget that you know way more about tools and most of the vendors they're ignorant about this stuff. Generally they're ignorant makes them overvalue their tools, but sometimes things go in the opposite direction. Check out this lovely moving phil astir plan, it's a lot like the little rabbit plane that we made a few months ago, but bigger and with more features. This would be a great alternative to an expensive rabbit plane like the stanley 78, and this thing is in excellent condition. The only marking on the plane is Sandusky and I guarantee you, the seller, didn't know what they were looking at, because $ 35 is a great price for a useful tool in this condition. If I didn't already own a couple of rabbit planes, I would snap this up for sure here's a good example of how tool seller ignorant scan work in your favor. This is my saw vise. This is the distant d3 and it's one of the most sought-after models of solve Isis. If you go on eBay right now, these things are going for $ 50 plus and then shipping on top of that and they're heavy. I bought this for 20 bucks at an antique store and, as I was checking out, I said to the seller: hey um. Do you even know what this is and she said? No. I have no idea, I just slapped a price on it at random, and I said, oh, that's, great here's my card give me a call. If you get any of their tools, then I'd be happy to come. Have a look at them. You can also get great prices on very common tools. Like saws. There are so many hand SOLAS in the world that most vendors don't even bother trying to get much money for them. This little handsaw isn't anything special, but it's in great shape and it'll be ready to go without any long restoration at five dollars. This would be a solid deal for anybody building up their shop and, let's not forget that antique stores also have another valuable resource. Antique furniture while on tool hunting, I'm always keeping my eye open for interesting old pieces and useful stuff that I might want to build for my house, and you can also just see some lovely craftsmanship and wood grain. That'S perfect and mellow. After years of sitting in somebody's house, I like to open doors and drawers and even crawl under pieces of furniture, to see how the old craftsman did stuff. When I'm looking at this old furniture, I'm often surprised because the details are very different than what you see in books and fancy-schmancy woodwork magazines. The work is often rougher and it's done in ways that are considered sort of non-standard, so the mortise and Tenon's might be constructed differently. The dovetails might be a little gap year, then you're gon na see on somebody's Instagram feed. But what's interesting about this furniture is that it's stood the test of time. It'S survived long enough to make it into the store in the first place, and you see all sorts of shapes and forms chairs and desks and chests that you would just never see because people built stuff that they needed. Looking at this stuff always gives me a huge confidence boost, it's obvious that the craftspeople who made most furniture well, they wanted things to be useful and asked they weren't killing themselves. Trying to make every last detail super perfect and their stuff is still around decades or even centuries later so check out this weird little chair. It'S not super old and I don't even know what to call it, but it's lovely it would make an interesting project. I think my daughter would love it. I also found this amazing old joiners tool chest. It was clearly made by a master. It'S got big tight dovetails and the original sliding tilts, where the craftsman would have kept small tools and hardware. The lid is especially nice. Every detail is really just beautiful, yeah stuff like this tool chest. It always costs too much to buy, but maybe I'll build one someday and before I go, I have a special treat for you. This is a genuine Stanley number one bench plane right next to its big brother. The almost is rare number two yeah. I have been to hunting for a lot of years, but this is the only time I've ever even seen a number one in person and for a tool. This rare they're only asking $ 1,075, which is discounted a bit from the last time. I visited this store. Three years ago, Hey antique store owners of the world. If your stock is sitting on the shelves for three years, you might want to rethink that business model a little bit but whatever, if you're, watching this video you're, probably a buyer, not a seller. I bet you want to know what I actually bought at this thing. Just one thing: a lovely old carpenters hammer, it's tiny bit lighter and differently shaped than the more modern hammers that I own, the head is smaller and so there's less chance. I'M gon na ding the work while I'm nailing things and I'm much more interested in nailed construction recently, and I wanted a more furniture specific hammer for that. This one also has a fantastic Hickory handle. Obviously, handmade beautiful octagonal shape feels amazing in the hand genuinely better than any of the fancy fiberglass handle that I own it's a really good tool, but the seller didn't know that, so I only paid $ 12 for it. I'M delighted with this. This is not a big tool purchase, especially for driving a long distance and spending like half a day, but a lot of the time. All I get is something small when I'm antique store shopping, I'm often just scouting things out seeing what's out there looking at furniture pieces thinking about stuff that I might want to build. The winter is a great time to build in this hobby. Read books. Think about things plant, your next move for when the weather is warmer and you can get out and do more stuff and look, you might not be able to do any tool hunting this winter and that's fine, because when you can't buy tools, you should make your Own and I have got you covered on that - I have done a lot of super low-cost, very effective tool builds recently and if you haven't seen them yet, you should check out my DIY rabbet plane, my homemade spokeshave and my advanced joiners mallet. These are very high quality tools that you can make for very low money, and I have plans available for them. I'Ve links to them down in the description, and you can also just go to Rex. Krueger comm slash store where I've got a whole bunch more plans, plus t-shirts, hoodies links to the book. I wrote all sorts of good stuff and before I go, I have always got to thank my patrons on patreon videos like this that involve a lot of driving time filming editing they are expensive to produce. This is not a cheap thing to be involved in, but I can afford to do it even during the busy holiday season because of my patience. They give me the financial support that makes all of this possible and they're also just a fantastic community of people. They give me feedback on my work. They give me advice. They tell me about tools or books that I might want to read it's fantastic. If you'd like to be part of this fantastic community of craftspeople, go on over to patreon comm /, 4x Krueger and check out the early access and exclusive rewards that I have just for my patrons - and I say this in all my videos, but I really mean It I wouldn't be here at all if I didn't have people watching my videos, so if you're just sitting watching thanks, I really appreciate it.Like it? Share it! |