Many people don’t realise the importance of supporting full-time used tool dealers who invest in knowledge and have worked hard to gain the ability to make better judgments on prices, identify conditions, learn about desirability & rarity, etc. Those who do this for a living invest in books, equipment, and the business space needed to run our operations and have to pay taxes, employ accountants, and undertake many other things involved with running businesses.
So why is it important to use dealers? Well, the simple answer is this, who would be the reference of good reliable information, where would people be able to compare tools for instance to ensure they are complete or find those descriptions? In our case, you get to compare standards, knowing for instance that if you want to buy something that is set up right and ready to go, compared to other tools you would have to undertake the work yourselves.
Time is money, skilled time is more money and this is clearly illustrated in many products we sell here.
I like other full-time used tool dealers appreciate the public’s desire for ever lower prices, and to do this they often buy directly from the public or those topping up their pensions with some undeclared earnings from buying and selling. But the trade-off is always the lack of knowledge by the seller who will often copy and paste directly from those who live and breathe the subject.
If full-time used tool dealers disappear:
If you directly compare this to carpentry, for example, it’s clear over the past 30 years there has been a decline in knowledge and experience. There has been a renaissance in recent years in learning from the old hands that are left and a few will progress into experts themselves one day depending on the challenges they are prepared to undertake. Experience is vitally important in any subject and often any advice you hear about tools comes from woodworkers who have never experienced selling old tools as a business, and who do not understand the costs or work involved.
Used tool dealers would never try to interject our opinions on what the trades charge for example or should charge for training so to hear this regularly in the opposite direction without the true facts is rather annoying when our subject is so vast.
When I mention the Dunning-Kruger effect I usually relate this to a wider topic but this article relates to old tools and those experts in another subject i.e. use them, stepping into our realm of expertise.
The fact is there is a wide range of tool makers (a trade in its own right) who have different qualities, for instance, Stanley and Record smoothing planes when refined properly will work as well as anything you can buy on the market today, however, I would never recommend one of these being converted into a scrub plane, because they are too good for that purpose. Instead, I would recommend something less popular due to a number of characteristics inadvertently created to suit this purpose better. So from time to time, I will refurbish a Rapier 400 which has a wider throat, better cap iron configuration to follow the cambered iron, and heavier casting.
I have seen videos from prominent woodworkers sharpening saws for example that wouldn’t match our standards, they are fine for basic sharpening but would soon fall from grace when tackling some of the efforts we see daily in the tools we buy and restore. Video’s on refurbishing No: 4 planes but never No: 7’s you will notice because to get these right requires experience and hard-earned know-how.
It’s always been in the detail with everything we do and old tools are no different in this regard.
But at this time, buyers have the opportunity to experience how good these old tools are when refurbished correctly, without the hard work involved using tools many couldn’t warrant to possess, the grime and dust, and the extra hidden costs involved in getting these tools to a high standard.
We appreciate that times are getting harder with inflation and living costs, we also experience these same issues but also want to get through it so our knowledge and experience are still around when all these tougher times pass. To do that we are here to serve and every small order makes a difference in whether this happens, but believe us when I say, we know how bad it can get when those only in it for profit and have no regard for the deeper knowledge.
Tooltique has always strived to increase standards in this industry that have never existed before!
We are entering a new world, one of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currencies) where money will be tracked like never before, and there won’t be any unofficial sellers, cash in hand will be a thing of the past. Any future business will have to adapt to these new ways of carbon emissions, carbon credits, social responsibilities, and carbon accounting.
Your choices will be diminished by corporations who will want to sell their New Tools at inflated prices, fully carbon-tracked of course. To combat this we have to invest in the technologies to ensure buyers can account for their carbon (hopefully credits which I am working on) when buying old tools from us.
There is so much more on this subject but it’s an area I am researching in-depth to ensure we are fully prepared for that transition. Put it this way, Brexit and all the forms it created was a walk in the park for what is coming! Don’t you love those bureaucrats or should I say kleptocrats?
What I can say is that the old skills that have been neglected for so long through convenience will become highly relevant again due to costs, and people like me are capable of providing solutions if our existing and new customers continue to value what we offer.
Hobbyists will be glad they have new skills they have gained and the tools they possess with no plugs, existing trades will have to adapt and learn some of the old ways, and waste will become a thing of the past. It’s coming folks whether you like it or not, because it’s beyond any of our control!
