Thread: 8/8 R. Sutcliffe Sheffield Razor

As acquired this blade was badly rusted and pitted. Luckily it had a nice deep makers stamp. There was no way to save the masonic etching. The scales were rotten but appeared to have been honey horn. The big brass collars were smashed almost flat and 1 was missing. Since I have learned never to throw anything razor related away I had a spare to match. The scales are over 6 inches in length and I had to dig into my stash of large blanks from Austin Kennedy. I added a couple of in process pictures after regrinding and setting the bevel. I chose to use a glazed finish for the blade faces and a crocus finish for the spine and tang.
Not much information out there that I can find on R. Sutcliffe. Tweedale's Directory lists an R. Sutcliffe that died in 1811. Could this have been made by a family member? I did find other Sutcliffe names in directories in Sheffield in various trades.
This razor seems to date from when the first of the big blades started to show up 1820 - 1830. It has a wide flat tang with thumb notch which I have seen from that time period. Maybe Viodmaster or Scienceguy will chime in with a history lesson.

Looking at the posts of your restoration work never gets old.

Once again, your ability to turn rags into riches has produced another flawless and beautiful restoration.

Pete <:-}

Beautiful work as always.

Beautiful razor, lovely work

I like the shape of that tang. Nice work as always.

It turned out really beautifully.

That's beautiful, great job! Good that you had a spare collar to match, they're really nice, especially against the color of that horn.

Really cool. Bonus on that missing collar. Makes all the difference.

Some info on the maker would be nice. I have seen more big ones than anything else from Sutcliffe..

Originally Posted by karlej

Not much information out there that I can find on R. Sutcliffe. Tweedale's Directory lists an R. Sutcliffe that died in 1811. Could this have been made by a family member? I did find other Sutcliffe names in directories in Sheffield in various trades.

Seems improbable, that the one listed in Tweedale's would be from the same family since its Sutcliff and not Sutcliffe.. There are countless Sutcliffe's from Sheffield the only one I found with a reference to cutlery was the one from this book.