Thread: Older Chinese Symbol Sheffield... 中国使用符号剃须刀

Where is the 中国使用符号剃须刀 symbols from? The text on the blade is much shorter.
I pasted the text in translator and it came back "CHINA'S USE OF SYMBOLS SHAVER".

I may be able to get someone to really translate it for me later. If so, I'll post an update.

Originally Posted by JP5

Where is the 中国使用符号剃须刀 symbols from? The text on the blade is much shorter.
I pasted the text in translator and it came back "CHINA'S USE OF SYMBOLS SHAVER".
I may be able to get someone to really translate it for me later. If so, I'll post an update.

Most Chinese symbols are used as paired items defining themselves. Each symbol is telling a story from prehistorical original pictorial writing. And from the prsent many thousand characters, there was over 100K characters used by the previous scholarlies of the original
I used the same Google translator and translated the symbol pairs as you see. There are many possibilities generated. You see the ones which I chose as most pertinent to the razor. There could also be an another side bar which may have more character pairs available. Traditional and simplified Chinese are available also.
Have fun!
~Richard
PS. I am not Chinese but have spent time with Asians of Japanese and Chinese descent. Interesting people for sure!
PPS. I have been told that some of the symbolism on the razors was just window dressing. It would be nice to get a Chinese scholar to look and translate the lesser markings if possible.

The text on the shank is JAPANESE, not Chinese. The first character means "East".

Originally Posted by JP5

The text on the shank is JAPANESE, not Chinese. The first character means "East".

There's no difference other than pronunciation. Japanese kanji are Chinese characters.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

There's no difference other than pronunciation. Japanese kanji are Chinese characters.

From what I was told that is that is not entirely true. Some of them do have different meanings.

Also, they said part of the text was uniquely Japanese and that is why they knew it wasn't Chinese. So, it must not all be kanji.

Funny, so many razors from this era had 'Chinese' writing upon them. Have not seen a positive translation yet.
Lots of different dialects in China. Throw that in and the fact that almost every major maker in Sheffield threw them out there. Sort of like early (and late!) Chinese doing English!
They were selling! This one screams Heiffor. Lots of obscure makers did them as well.

The later Chinese have gotten pretty good at English. When people complain about the massive amounts of Chinese goods that we consume (including meat...arghh) I suggest that all imported goods have a label in the language where they were manufactured or more inclusively, where they came from. No more Sawmill Road flannel shirts made in China but 锯木厂路 Made in China. To be fair...this would, of course, apply to any US middleman of out of country products...Not isolationism, just a more global approach.

Originally Posted by karlej

Nice restore.
If you search Chinese razor you will come up with a great explanation of the characters. I'm not literate enough to link it. Translates to something like 'Uniquely Suited'.Attachment 206999

I didn't mention this one before. When I asked what the shank of your razor said, they gave me the Chinese pronunciation (don't ask me) and said it was a company name. They also said the second character meant "Good".

Wish I could give you more, but I'm not sure how well it translates all together. Perhaps to them the company name didn't have a good direct translation.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Funny, so many razors from this era had 'Chinese' writing upon them.......This one screams Heiffor. Lots of obscure makers did them as well.

Funny that you mention it Tom...I have a few old Heiffor's and one of them is the exact same blade except for a more traditional tail.

I have one very similar and it's a Joseph Elliot's. Can't catch it any better with my phone.



Obviosly not the original scales. These are very ugly and will be changed someday.