My first smoothing plane arrived today, a Millers Falls #9. This plane’s condition is not bad at all:

According to Randy Roeder’s type study, this is a so-called type 3 plane. It has the wartime fittings, including the non-tropical tote and knob, steel depth adjusting knob, and steel handle fasteners. There is no paint in the lever cap lettering recess. However, even though the tote is made of a domestic hardwood, its shape is the same as that of a type 2 plane. Weird, I guess, but it doesn’t really matter.

Dates aside, to put this plane to work, it seems that all I need to do to this plane is lap the sole, hone the iron, tune the chipbreaker, and add a washer to the tote’s fastening screw. I’ll probably do a few other things to clean it up, but it does seem that this tool was definitely worth the thirteen dollars.