Thread: Anyone here?

Originally Posted by kcb5150

It's kind of why I am picky. I like stock restos. Make the blade period correct and as tidy as possible, recon the horn if possible 1:1 duplicate if necessary.

Indeed. Things such as this deserve such treatment. Or to be left alone.

The wedges I find hard to use are the really tiny American made ones. It doesn't help that they take some of the most savage edges of anything I know of.

Originally Posted by kcb5150

The wedges I find hard to use are the really tiny American made ones. It doesn't help that they take some of the most savage edges of anything I know of.

I suppose that is a horse of a different color?

For sure, little blade in general want to turn on me and that can be very bad

Originally Posted by kcb5150

The wedges I find hard to use are the really tiny American made ones. It doesn't help that they take some of the most savage edges of anything I know of.

The little ones that say WEDGE on the tang are imo one of the nicest stone tester razors. You can push them as far as you desire. They are just horribly bitey and feel unstable.

I've honed those, they do take a super edge for sure

Originally Posted by kcb5150

The little ones that say WEDGE on the tang are imo one of the nicest stone tester razors. You can push them as far as you desire. They are just horribly bitey and feel unstable.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Only one of those you will see, I think. Seems he got more for the FBU? It was certainly nice. The Stenton is much more rare, I think.
'Devil Stenton' There was a badass! Where is that thread?

There's a couple of Stenton threads. He's one of my hobbyhorses (Stenton, Gilchrist, Wade, and Stodart are the ones I've buried myself to the gills in research on).

William Stenton was a helluva character whose family met with a fantastically bizarre end.

He was born in Sheffield, 1777. His first job was running a cutlery warehouse, but he moved on to partner with William Greaves, where he worked until 1817. Next up was Naylor & Sanderson, which is where he earned the title Devil Stenton. The cutlers did not like him at all. Sadly, we do not know precisely why. When Naylor & Sanderson reorganized in 1829 Stenton lit off to Wostenholm's, where the young George was just starting to take over the business from his father (also named George).

Stenton helped the Wostenholms launch their American business, and thus shepherded one of Sheffield's greatest success stories. The Georges were a big deal!

But George Jr. was a legendary hot head too, and it didn't take long for he and Stenton to part company.

With the big Wostenholm bootprint on his butt he packed up his family and set up his own business (Wm. Stenton & Son), both in Sheffield and New York. That's when he started making razors stamped 'Again Superior', because that's just the kind of guy William Stenton was. His shop in New York sold all kinds of goods, including Fred Fenney's Tally-Ho razors.

While his son became a naturalized American citizen in 1861, William stayed in Sheffield for a good long time.

Robert Stenton married well, Louisa Malcom was the daughter a prominent pastor. Their daughter Alice Cornelia Driscoll Stenton was born in 1862. Robert did real well during the civil war, selling muskets and steel. He made a lot of powerful friends. People like, oh, the Vanderbilts. It was on Vanderbilt advice that Robert would give up the merchant business and become a commercial broker. That was something his father didn't live to see.

William Stenton died at his son's Bronx home in 1863. He was 87.

That's about when things get really weird.

By 1867 Robert was bankrupt. He and Louisa divorced and she had to mortage their home to get by. Robert, however, fled to San Francisco where he died of pneumonia in 1876.

The house where William Stenton died and Robert and Louisa had lived, over decades, became increasingly run-down. Alice married, moved out, left her husband and moved back in. Right around the time the first subway station opened in the Bronx, just two blocks from the house, Alice was murdered on the front porch by her mother's lawyer, Burton W. Gibson.

There's a good writeup of Gibson's rather impressive antics here, though it neglects to mention that Alice's murder was a bit of a media sensation. There were reports of a secret, lead-lined treasure room hidden behind a fake wall in the mansion, rumors that Louisa had been a river pirate, and all manner of back and forth with the police.

In the latter round of stories about Gibson, once the tide had turned from heroic lawyer to despicable murderer, he had become the Devil Lawyer.

Dammit! Every time Voidmonster writes things like this my "must have" list gets longer!

Originally Posted by BeJay

Dammit! Every time Voidmonster writes things like this my "must have" list gets longer!

I've long since learned to write about things like this only after I've found the ones I must have.



(I didn't get this Stenton razor, I already have a pretty big one.)

Oh, and while I'm at it, here's an ad Robert Stenton ran in the September 1st 1845 New York Evening Post.