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The Stanley Tool Works made this complex and technologically advanced combination plane some time around 1900. Early American planes were made of wood with a metal blade; each plane created a single shape. After the Civil War metal planes began to appear, and later complex planes such as this one had multiple interchangeable blades, which allowed the same plane to cut a variety of shapes. This plane's decoration is not essential to function, but since the casting of such decoration cost little more, it was included on this technologically advanced tool at a time when workman took great pride in their tools. While hand planes are still in use today by hand craftsmen and those in less developed countries, mass-produced millwork and power tools, such as the router, have largely replaced their function in the United States.

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