Thread: Old Marsden

This old Marsden is, I think, the oldest razor I have. Really neat horn pressings and a pretty good old stub-tailed blade.
Finally got it going.



A bit of a challenge, I bundled it into a few for horn repairs a while back. Beetles had all but eaten away the back scale pivot and the old blade had been dangling from the front scale for many moons.



No rescale here! Without unpinning the bottom, I cleaned up the scales with light diluted Simple Green and set out to graft a donor piece. Getting everything straight and the grain the right direction, a bevel on both pieces was made on the back side.

Joined with 2 part epoxy mixed with bakelite dust, all was cut, shaped and sanded as evenly possible.
A bit more applied to the front to even that out. Front pin-hole was wallowed out, so filled, sanded, and redrilled. Then finely sanded as best as I could.



Some Sharpie was applied to all four bolsters and around the edges for uniformity. The scales were then saturated with neetsfoot oil and allowed to soak in for a few days. I have found putting horn in a bind as the neetsfoot soaks in will sometimes straighten them a bit.


Never unpinned the bottom. Got it pinned back at the top using the original collars which were still dangling up there. Neat old razor, I think.



Marsden seems a bit of an enigma.. Some info from Zak's blog can be seen here; Sometimes, the only evidence is circumstantial. | The Shivering Beggar

Some more pics of the scales. In the morning, our hunter is setting forth with anxious dogs accompanied by Cupid sitting upon a bull.
I suppose a love for hunting and Cupid is quite 'bullish' on it as well?



As-returning in the evening, Tired dogs, some fowl and a rabbit are harvested. The hunter is now enjoined by Baccus.
Seems apparent that libations are in order!



Got it all honed up after a few trials. Shaves well!





Still a few bites, not much done to the blade. Thanks for looking.

DAMN!!!!! That is awesome.

Always a pleasure to view your expert repair/restore work. Just a lovely old razor.

Bob

........ ..........

Well done, Tom

TLC for a fine old piece.

Congrats

Very interesting review in photos, is always interesting as there is restoration.

Now That my friend is the Epitome of a restoration!!
Absolutely stunning job bringing back a little piece of the past. Awesome job and thanks for posting your procedures! May give me the confidence to attempt a few scale repairs myself!

Beautiful save there Tom
Great work retaining as much original materials as possible
I haven't tried to use Epoxy to join a complete section of horn only filling bug bites this is definitely an inspiration
thanks for sharing

The problem with researching Marsdens is that there were just SO DAMN MANY of them. But I've suffered in the pits of parsimonious given names so y'all don't have to.

To cut to the chase, our man Marsden, in this case, is George Marsden of 21 Meadow Street.

Getting more precise is problematic.

Baine's Directory, published in 1823 lists G. Marsden, razor manufacturer at 21 Meadow Street. Unfortunately, I don't have my books unpacked yet so I can't compare that against the dates for James Barlow. Geoffrey Tweedale turned up a goodly amount on Barlow, and that's pertinent because A) Barlow took over the works at that street address and B), he made this (which I'd get better pictures of if I had all my razors with me at the moment):



And yep, it's etched Magnum Bonum on the top of the spine.

So. George Marsden. The apprentice registries aren't really any help, since there are six George Marsdens within a 15 year span all apprenticed in the right branches of the trade to have ended up manufacturing razors in the right timeframe (roughly 1808-1820ish).

The trade directories aren't any help because there's only a single listing dated 1823.

Unfortunately, the busy Mr. Marsden is probably going to remain an unknown other than his first name.

More fruitful are the scales, which are almost certainly original to the blade. I've seen a lot of Marsden and allied styles in pressed horn like that.

If you look very carefully all over the scales you might find the name of the scale manufacturer. These old pressed horn scales are a major fascination for me because they're traceable. This is the last lot of them I got:



Names I know:

Broadwell
Morton
Wilson
Woofindin (there's a fair bit on this clan, as they founded an important charity)

Everything I have on the figural scale pressers is pure guesswork. There's not any real record of these sorts of scales, Geoffrey Tweedale hadn't ever seen anything like them. The pressers themselves were relatively well known as a kind of OEM manufacturer (think ACDelco or Foxconn a company that manufactures the parts that other companies use to build stuff), but I've never seen a plausible explanation for where these fancy scales came from.

My best guess is that they sold by the scale manufacturers and not the blade makers. A lot of them are generic (IE: Warranted, Refined Steel, Silver Steel, etc -- no 'brand' name), but not all by any means. The scales come in a wide variety of quality too, and some were clearly knock-offs of better work.

Broadwell, Morton, and Wilson marks will be pretty easy to find, though Wilson's could be well hidden. Early Woofindin stuff is astoundingly close to invisible.



At the bottom of the design, there's a basket. On the left side, just below it you can make out a scratchy VW. That's the initials of Verdon Woofindin who most likely cut the die used to press these scales. I've seen at least one other Woofindin initial (I, if my memory's working right, which I'm not sure it is).