Tapping out and Chasing Unicorns – Eclipse Hand Planes

If you’ve been following me on Facebook and other forum boards, you’ll know that I am temporarily out of work at the moment while I recover from shoulder surgery. That means I have a LOT of time on my hands and no matter how much stuff I get done there’s always more to do, especially when it comes to research and acquisition of vintage hand planes for my collection.

As of late I have really fleshed out my Defiance planes even discovering a few I had no clue existed. Same goes for the Eclipse planes sold by Monkey Wards. One of these items was a block plane I purchased with ECLIPSE stamped on the blade. The problem with this, is that aside from the one I have I can find no mention of this existing or even a block plane in the Eclipse line. What this is making me think is that someone at some point needed a blade for a regular Stanley or even Defiance block plane and just snatched the iron from an Eclipse block plane… not think about that, if you needed an iron to replace one in another plane and you have this mythical block plane sitting around… puts us right back to square one. I’ve been searching this for over a month ever since I snagged it on impulse just in case. I have not found any mention of this plane in vintage catalogs or anywhere, not even the sites that you can generally rely on for such things. So I am tapping out on this one and will wait for round 2 if it comes along.

So in my researching the block plane, I have stumbled onto more evidence that the Eclipse 1202 actually does exist and have found 2 more of them online along with a bit of information on their creation.

Over at Worthpoint.com there was two of them listed at one point, the first being the one I have shown on the Defiance page AND THEN another one listed for sale over at Jim Bode tools. What I found interesting was this bit of text from Worthpoint:

2 THIS IS A STANLEY MANUFACTURED DEFIANCE/ECLIPSE BRAND # 2. THESE WERE MADE FOR MONTGOMERY WARDS DEPARTMENT STORES FOR SALE IN THEIR TOOL DEPARTMENTS. THE BODY IS A STANDARD STANLEY CASTING WITH THE ‘ NO. 2 ‘ MILLED OFF AT THE FACTORY BEFORE BEING JAPPANED. KNOB AND TOTE ARE 100%, NO BREAKS,CRACKS AND NO REPAIRS. THE STANDARD ‘RED’ DEFIANCE LACQUER FINISH IS 95% COMPLETE. THE IRON IS NEAR FULL LENGTH WITH THE ‘ECLIPSE’ LOGO VERY CLEAR. NO DAMAGE AND NO REPAIRS TO THIS EXAMPLE. THIS IS A FAIRLY RARE # 2 TYPE HAND PLANE IN VERY GOOD CONDITION. 99% ORIGINAL JAPPANING REMAINING
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/stanley-defiance-eclipse-2-hand-plane-good++

Do you see it ??? The body is a standard No. 2 with the No. 2 milled off at the factory… So why is this important ??? Well if you think about it, it actually makes some sense. You have Monkey Wards wanting to add your planes to their inventory and you need to make a whole line of planes for them what do you on the fly ??? You grab whatever you can get your hands on and you go to town making the parts “work” by milling off the usual No. 2 marking on some planes and oh look, let’s grab these extra Defiance planes we have in stock and just rebrand them or let Monkey Wards rebrand them.

So that makes a total of 3 of these I have seen online, at least one sold for $165 I think it was over a Jim Bode Tools: https://www.jimbodetools.com/products/extra-fine-no-2-plane-by-eclipse-98048

So yeah, while one bit of research delivered nothing I kept coming across these two Eclipse 1202’s. I have no reason to doubt either site as they are both credible sources when trying to track things down. I was also able to learn something that might be useful tracking one of these unicorns down.

The reason I call them unicorns has to do with the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds” where Nicolas Cage chases down a 1967 Shelby GT 500 and at one point as this sleek looking is being crushed he looks at it and simply says “unicorn”. That was his “insta-woody” car that he always wanted. So yeah, the Eclipse 1202 is a unicorn for me at the moment. I’ve even found mention of a couple of other things I need to look into, one of which is the listing for the Defiance planes with a nickel plated lever cap, and the nomenclature in the catalog shows them as 1203N, 1204N, and 1205N with the “N” standing for nickel I can assume???

Anywho, that’s what I have been up to this evening and I’m pretty pleased with the research. Like I said, one river dried up but then I found another to paddle my boat down.

Never fails, as soon as you hit the publish button something else pops up that can be added to the post… stupid internet. What I need to add is this tidbit that goes along with the two images of the first Eclipse 1202 I discovered online and it to mentions that the No. 2 was ground off at the mill. So yeah, the facts are adding up and backing each other up.

Montgomery Ward’s No. 2 – ECLIPSE / Stanley Defiance #1202, ca:1930’s

This plane was sold by Montgomery Wards sometime in the 1930’s. In the 2-size, the plane is somewhat rare but not nearly as rare as some of the tool dealers would lead you to believe. FEATURES THAT DIFFER FROM STANLEY’s REG. BRAND NAME 2-SIZE PLANES:1. The wood: instead of using rosewood Stanley used a less expensive wood, then they stained the wood a reddish color to simulate rosewood.2. The bed: they used their regular 2-size plane beds to which they filed off the “No” and “2″ raised casting marks.3. The lever cap: they used their regular 2-size lever cap castings but did not install the spring on the back, also they did not polish & nickle plate it, they gave it a brush finish and applied some clear laquer.4. The lateral adjusting lever: instead of using their regular lateral adjusting lever with the two piece end, instead they just twisted the end of the lever.5. The cutter adjusting wheel: for this they used steel instead of the brass that they used on their regular Stanley planes.6. The cutter Stamp: is stamped “ECLIPSE” not Defiance. In the 2-size, Stanley never stamped these with the Defiance brand name.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/-snapshot-/7366956732/in/photostream/

And then there’s this… a No. 4 1/2 Eclipse Plane ?!?! Gonna have to do some more digging on this but it makes sense, kinda, right ??? https://www.jimbodetools.com/products/rare-no-4-1-2-size-jumbo-smooth-plane-eclipse-made-by-vaughan-bushnell-101074 <— UPDATE: Not related to this line of planes, this is something entirely different and when looking it up and researching even more I am inclined to believe they just put an Eclipse iron on the plane as a replacement. One neat thing about these is that Bedrock looking body, but if you follow that link you’ll see more differences, it just doesn’t quite say “Stanley made me”.

But it was made by Vaughan and Bushnell ??? WTF internet, trying to give me an aneurysm this morning ? Knock it off !!!

And then there’s this one now also… thinking I’ll be getting one of these before the week is over lol.

Yup, they apparently are not as rare as once believe them to be, just have to do some digging. Before I buy anything though I make it a point to have the seller get me an accurate measurement of the sole and width of the iron. If it all matches up what I am looking for I will buy it, but if they keep saying “oh it looks like about 9 inches” then no, walking away.

Montgomery Ward’s No. 2 – ECLIPSE / Stanley Defiance #1202, ca:1930’s

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