Craftsman shaper, any way to date it?

Not accurately. Between late 1937 and 1959, Atlas sold over 13,000 of the of their model 7, 7A, 7AB and 7B shapers, a probable average of just under 600 per year. The first one to appear in the Sears catalog was in 1953. So yours was made no earlier than late 1952. The last Sears catalog with mill and shaper was 1959. But we only have three reported examples of the 101.16000, s/n 309, 332 and 409. It would be voodoo statistics to make anything of that. So sll that I can say is between 1953 and 1959.
 
Will,

Tappatalk emoticons don't work here. Use the ones provided just above the composing screen. o_O:gangster:
 
Thank you for the quick reply. I'm guessing fairly early with the low serial number. Interesting...

I'm new with the Tapatalk, so far I don't see the available smileys. Ugh, learning curve.....

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using Tapatalk
 
The line above the composing area should begin with a capital "B" and end with a right-arrow. The Smiley button is just to the right of center.
 
Will,

We don't know that those are low serial numbers. 409 is the highest one in the database. We only have the three numbers. And they are all relatively close together. Until we have at least 10 or 15 examples, we can't begin to guess at total sales. I agree that it's unlikely that Sears would have continued selling them for nearly 7 years if they were only selling 70 or 80 per year. But the sample is much too small to draw any conclusions from. By contrast, we have 37 examples of Atlas models, with a serial number range of from 1226 to 13691.
 
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