A couple of weekends ago, my wife and I drove up to Millersburg, OH to check out the fall colors and the antique malls up there. We visited Millersburg a couple of years back only to find out after we left, that there is an antique tool store in town. I saw Colonial Homestead on Instagram when we got home and couldn’t believe I missed it so, this time I knew I had to put it on our list of stops.
The building is about ten minutes outside of town and is a really big. Inside there are thousand of tools laying on tables and bookshelves. I immediately took a step back just to absorb everything I was looking at. There’s a table in front with a bunch of Stanley planes that are restored and ready for use.
Every tool you could imagine in this joint with some rare and unusual pieces. The prices on the tools are equivalent to eBay pricing, so don’t expect to get a steal. At least it’s not for me as I’m a picker so there was no meat-on-the-bone with the pricing on the tools. He was asking $2100 for the Stanley No 1 which was way above my budget. It looks like it’s sitting on the original box but I don’t remember noticing the box when I was looking at it.
He did have a real nice selection of molding planes with prices that were in my budget however, he only takes cash and I didn’t have any on me so, it was pretty much a few minutes of browsing.
He also had a nice closet full of woodworking books. There were a lot of out of print books along with Lost Art Press favorites. I looked for the 2nd edition of the Stanley Tool Collecting book by John Walter but, there was none to be found.
After twenty minutes of browsing, I said goodbye and went on my way as my wife was waiting in the truck. The weekend wasn’t a total lost as I was able to find tools in my budget in antique malls in Berlin, and Walnut Creek, OH. The prelateral Stanley No 37 Jenny’s Plane was my favorite pick of the trip.
MVFlaim Furnituremaker 