I'm meaning in general for instance if you went to buy some fence posts they would most likely be covered in machine marks whereas years ago they perhaps would have been finished cleaner or perhaps the carpenters would have cleaned the machine marks with a hand plane?
What are you talking about? Fence posts have always been either sawn or peeled (at least for the last 120 odd years) and nobody in their right mind would spend any time to try and plane or sand them (have you ever tried to plane or sand wet or green timber?)
Let's say we were examining the skirting boards of 10 Victorian/Edwardian houses and compared them with skirting board of modern houses. I would expect the skirting board and woodwork from the Edwardian/Victorian houses to be free of original machine marks. What would you expect?
It depends on the age, location and class of the house. You have got to realise that machined timber profiles became the norm in big towns and cities in the UK as early as the 1860s (most of the big woodworking machines had been invented and were in use before 1850 - see Powis-Bale) although there was still a tendency until WWI and later for smaller shops to machine just the faces and edges of, say, skirtings because of the cost, size and complexity of 4-sided moulders. In addition the class of work is very significant; work on an old bank or a high class house, for example, and you will probably find that all the mouldings at "front of house" look to have been sanded before and possibly after installation - because they would possibly be hardwood, stained and polished - whereas back of house (I.e.servants or staff areas) skirtings were often low quality and given a quick coat of thick dark brown or dark green paint. In late Victorian and Edwardian houses sanding of those skirtings, especially if they have rarely seen a lick of paint, can reveal the tell-tale scallops of high speed wood machining. Even where front of house is painted (and remember they used lead based paints a lot, which are extremely thick in comparison with modern coatings - and thus will hide machining scallops all the better). Hand work is and always has been expensive
All the door jams perhaps might have machine marks all over them in the modern houses but not in the Edwardian and Victorian ones.
Actually, I have seen machining marks on softwood Edwardian frames and casings , but rarely on the rather fancy architraves they used possibly because at least some of them were hand planed
Is it possible to take wood straight off of a planer without any machine marks?
No. You can reduce or minimise machine scallops by optimising cutter speed, feed speed, etc
Perhaps it's this and that the consumer doesn't know or notice the difference in quality?
And/or won't pay an appropriate price for the quality here in the UK these days. Work on a hardwood shop fitting job like John Lewis, Debenhams or Next and the hardwood fittings are perfectly machined and properly sanded - so it is possible if you are prepared to pay the price
What do you mean by first growth?
Timber cut from virgin forest. This is generally straighter, has tighter rings (I.e slower grown), deeper colour (in hardwoods) and has larger diameter boles (trunks) yielding wider boards. Second growth is what has grown in place of the virgin forest and is what we generally see today - wider rings, less strong, paler in colour (hardwoods) and smaller (narrower) planks because the trees are less mature when felled
Also didn't they use a lot of "Pitch Pine" in construction of docs?
Docks? More stuff like iron heart, etc which withstand being soaked and dried continuously. Pitch pine was favoured from the mid-19th century until the 20s or 30s for primary beams, roof trusses, purlins, ring beams, mill floors, etc whilst in the same period Quebec yellow pine was the preferred timber for frame and panel doors, skirtings and other mouldings, floorboards, etc. As supplies of virgin forest timber diminished flooring switched to other species, like parana pine, but remember that in the same period building structure changed with larger buildings transitioning to steel frame structures
Where would you even find those type of pine trees any more? I suppose in virgin forests of Russia/Ukraine/Canada and places like that.
The best yellow pine was always Canadian (colder, so slower growth). The best pitch pine came from north east USA. AFAIK almost all virgin softwood forests in north America were felled by the end of WWII. There is little left. Russian timber is really only co instruction quality - wrong species for much else