The plate on this level appears to be not brass and its rusted pretty good.
It says Stanley w/the heart and No. 0 on the plate.
Are these common? I thought all of them were brass. I didn't scratch it to confirm because brass isn't suppose to rust.

Per John Walter's Stanley book it should be brass.  Level was made from cherry in lengths from 24 to 30 inches as standard.  Available from 1859 till 1974.  Looks like one of Stanley's more popular models.  Not worth a whole lot unfortunately.

Mike

Quote from: mikeswrenches on April 23, 2016, 04:38:29 PM
Per John Walter's Stanley book it should be brass.  Level was made from cherry in lengths from 24 to 30 inches as standard.  Available from 1859 till 1974.  Looks like one of Stanley's more popular models.  Not worth a whole lot unfortunately.

Mike

OK, I'm going to take her apart then and polish it up. The rust really boggled my mind (which isn't to hard to do)

Well, this must be the really cheap cheap version, 100% not brass. The plate is some kind of steel like the screws which are also rusted. Maybe that makes this really rare :-)

War time production, Maybe?

Quote from: Analog on April 23, 2016, 07:12:01 PM
War time production, Maybe?

It would seem like it but "Sweethart" marked stuff is around 1920-1935.  Hard to tell with Stanley.  It may have been a special order for a customer.  Stanley would make about any changes you wanted if the quantity was there.

Mike

Can't help directly on that, but I have a Stanley Sweetheart adjustable bevel that's way lower in quality than their usual bevels of that period: the stock (handle part) is of some generic hardwood painted black, for instance.  I didn't find it in any of the catalogs of that period, but I suspect it could have been found at your lower-priced hardware stores.  Maybe they had a similar line in levels.

There were 3 variations of the Sweetheart logo -- 1920, 1921-22, and 1923-35.  Your logo looks like one of the earlier ones, but I cannot tell which one because of the rust.

It is fairly common to find construction materials that differs from what is listed in the Stanley catalogs, particularly during the war time models, as mentioned above.

I find the Stanley level models and construction particularly confusing.  I am not sure all the Walter info on them is accurate.