This shaper was advertised in the classifieds of my company's newsletter. The seller was a retired gentleman who was moving to a retirement home and was liquidating his hobby tools. I was primarily interested in his Craftsman 12x36 and bought the shaper on impulse - at $150 it seemed too good a deal to pass up. It came with what appears to be the original shaper vise and an Armstrong shaper tool. Together, those are probably worth what the shaper cost.
It was pretty dirty with a little bit of surface rust and I spent a summer cleaning it down to bare metal and repainting it. I've yet to use it much as the drive linkage needs alignment and the down feed leadscrew needs a bit of work as well.
Only about 3,500 of these shapers were made and old literature and Internet contacts indicate that Rhodes was sold to or merged with Ames some time around the early 1930's. This one is serial number 2413, which probably dates it to 1929.
One of the unique features of this shaper is that an attachment was sold to convert it into a 3" vertical slotter. A couple of years ago someone on the Internet offered the slotter parts free of charge and I talked him into selling it to me for the price of shipping. Not a bad deal! The slotter parts appear to be in good shape but need cleaning and painting - another of the many projects around here.