The enigmatic WB!
John Caraffi has been wondering about this plane for a while. It has an embossed WB stamp on the upper toe. He has read of other reports of a WB stamp from Phillip Proudfoot and in the David Russell collection, and the general appearance of the plane resembles those photographed for the collection,although the stamp is quite different.
The plane body,wedge and iron appear original. The wedge,toe and heel are all stamped once with incuse letter B. The lower toe is stamped incuse style W.L.B. .
The iron is marked WELDON (1774-1788 bpm3).
Confusingly it's length is a very short 9 1/4 inches with heavily rounded chamfers.The thick round wedge suggests an earlier date more like that of the iron,similarly the pronounced 1/4 " dropped shoulder from a noticeable fillet which passes over the fairly small gouge cuts. Dating contradictions abound.
Has anyone come across this WB stamp before? There is no mention of it in BPM or of the Bottle family referred to by Proudfoot, Walker, and Russell.