Thread: Thank god I didn't win.

Those land mines are out there, don't step on one!

I just hate it when that happens. They will look ok but when you go to hone them, it's a different story altogether!

I saw that but had to stay away from it. I knew the price would get way up there. I have two that look identical but they aren't Wade & Butcher. One says Magnum Bonum on the spine. The other one just says Sheffield on the shank.

Originally Posted by WW243

Thanks Bob, but the heel has no edge whatsoever.

With the large WBs I find it easier to hone the blade in two stages-from the middle of the blade to the toe and then from the heel to the middle of the blade. I then spend some time 'blending' for want of a better word. Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by GC7

I watched that one carefully but I didn't like the description of how he buffed the blade with a wheel and pastes so I was worried about the blade. I even asked a question here about the method he used so I stayed away. Let us know if the scales are original and the blade is in good shape. Thanks

Well, just had coffee with Valery, he had a look at the blade and basically said it looks brand new, it's in stellar condition, he couldn't believe it, scales, etching all superb, Saturday afternoon auction end and what a find! It's getting honed now and then used with some nice Barrister and Mann, Heather and Sage soap he gave me.

Originally Posted by Phrank

Well, just had coffee with Valery, he had a look at the blade and basically said it looks brand new, it's in stellar condition, he couldn't believe it, scales, etching all superb, Saturday afternoon auction end and what a find! It's getting honed now and then used with some nice Barrister and Mann, Heather and Sage soap he gave me.

Good on you. I let that one go by because I asked too many questions. One day I'll find that nice like original FBU. Use it well!

Showed up the other day, forgive the crappy cell phone pics!!

Simply...big...heavy.





'Magnum Bonum' is faint but clearly defined throughout





There is some slightly uneven hone wear on the sides

Ah, so it was you(s) that outbid me!

Only fair, I'll tell you what I know about this style of razor.

First and foremost, there are a surprisingly large number of them out there, for a razor that was fashionable in 1815.

Second, I did a big writeup on a subset of these razors over here.

However, since I wrote that, I've gotten more evidence, and one more razor.



(You can right click these images and 'view image' to see a high-res version)

The two with the makers marks ground off were made by George Marsden, probably around 1810-1814. The one in the pressed horn scales was made by James Barlow very shortly thereafter.

'Magnum Bonum' was a relatively common slogan etched onto razors in the first half of the 19th century, but there's a difference between a razor with the slogan and a 'Magnum Bonum' razor.

Razors with the slogan (Latin for 'great good', basically) were usually bigger razors, but otherwise unremarkable. Like this one.

What can be described as the Magnum Bonum razor bore the slogan on the top of the spine:


...and was made in a fairly distinctive shape.

To date I've seen razors in that shape, with minor design variations in the tang, made by Greaves & Sons, Wostenholm, James Barlow (quite a long time before his 'Echo' mark), George Marsden (stamped just 'Marsden'), and a whole slew of generics: 'Warranted', 'Cast Steel', 'Sheffield', etc.

This engraving from an 1815 book of advertising illustrations shows a slight variation. I'm not sure if the etching on the side of the spine was simply to illustrate that the etching was there, or if it was meant to be representational -- I've seen these razors with the etching in more or less that location.



As for Robert Wade...

He was born June 4th, 1773 in Sheffield. His father was a wealthy grain merchant, also named Robert Wade, and his mother's name was Eleanor.

What, exactly, the cutler did with most of his life is a mystery. There's some evidence that he was a captain in the Sheffield Volunteer militia, but that wasn't exactly a business proposition, and he couldn't have been mooching off his dad, since the elder Wade died in 1795.

Young Robert didn't take up the cutlery biz until he could do so without all that messy apprenticeship stuff -- specifically in 1814, when the Cutler's Company lost their monopoly control of the local cutlery trade. After that though, Wade seems to have hit the ground running. The partnership with William & Samuel Butcher didn't begin until 1818, but there's evidence that Wade continued producing under his own name even after that.

And, more pertinently, his wife Jane continued producing razors (she's listed in an old directory as Jane Wade, Razor Manufacturer) after he died in 1825. December 8th, to be more precise about it.

Jane died in 1829.

And that was the end of Wade & Butcher. Every razor marked 'Wade & Butcher' that was made after that date was effectively a brand name and not a company (kind of like the various makes of American cars which are technically General Motors, but branded with numerous companies names that still have value on their own).

However, Robert and Jane Wade had two children, Robert and Jane Elizabeth. It looks like the Butcher brothers took them in, because by 1840, Robert Wade (the third) was the man on the ground in America, and he was living high on the hog in Philadelphia.

So! I'd guess that Wade razor dates to 1815 +/- a year or two. The style of razor was always made with a very particular scale shape (as you'll have noticed from the various pictures here and in my blog post above).

Any restoration should make an active effort to preserve the etching on the spine, and most likely the original shape of the scales.

If it's anything like the ones I've got, it'll be a fantastic shaver.

The top razor is indeed a Magnum Bonum (can't see it from here). It also had some writing on the side of the spine which was hard to make out. I got it off eBay in an old London made strop box. The bottom razor however is different having a rounded spine with nothing written on it. It does have the top half of some writing on the tang which is hard to make out but could say "Superior" on it. I also got this one off eBay but in a separate auction.

Superior Temper.



I'm not sure what's on the side of the spine though, I'd need to see it in person.

These razors were, indeed, sold in pairs in a strop box. The two I got were in one, and Smith's Key has an engraving of the box, too.