Thread: Underbelly: Razor

OK, I've made a point of missing the previous underbelly series, but how can we resist this
UNDERBELLY RAZOR

Let's see how many different razors we can identify.

Yeah, lets see the going price of straights go up on ebay too.

Originally Posted by Pauly

Let's see how many different razors we can identify.

Probably all Bengalls

My kids were watching seven Brides for Seven Brothers the other day and I noticed one of the characters shaving with a very nice, and large, straight with a Barber's Notch. Might have beena big wedge as far as I could tell.

I'm almost on topic.

i must be old and grumpy as you guys seem overly optimistic. Reckon underbelly will be a whole lot of bad publicity that the anti-everything mob will use to try and ban straight razors and make more of us criminals in the eyes of uneducated joe public, just as they did with knives.
Aw - don't mind me, maybe i just need another coffee...... or maybe to accept life may need to be lived as an outlaw.

Originally Posted by Adam G.

i must be old and grumpy as you guys seem overly optimistic. Reckon underbelly will be a whole lot of bad publicity that the anti-everything mob will use to try and ban straight razors and make more of us criminals in the eyes of uneducated joe public, just as they did with knives.
Aw - don't mind me, maybe i just need another coffee...... or maybe to accept life may need to be lived as an outlaw.

+1 on this. It's a worry.

We all know that Underbelly is to historical accuracy as what Colonel Sanders is to chickens, so by my reckoning the only razor we are safe to bet on not showing up is a Bengall ...

The Promo photos have Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine holding this weird conglomeration with an 1820's blade shape, Swedish style thumbnotch and bakelite handles.

A mate of mine is a walloper and we discussed something similar a few weeks back.

In WWII the Commandos actively recruited members of the Glasgow and Sydney razor gangs into their ranks on the assumption that they were hard men. When these guys were confronted with instructors who would fight back and the other recruits were genuine hard men who had been on the two way rifle range they all turned to water.

When you look at a cut throat it really is the last blade you would pull out to fight with. Paper thin blade that is really fragile, no stabbing point. On the other hand it is a good tool for torturing people who won't fight back.

The idea that the razor gangs actually fought with razors is a myth.

Actually I went to the Femme Fatales exhibition put together by the justice and police museum in Sydney (I saw it at the National Archives in Canberra.) They had several razors used by the razor gangs on display. And yes, most of the ones they had there were Bengalls.

I don't think much fighting was done with the razors, but lots of disfigurement and throat cutting apparently went on.

Bad things happen when governments ban alcohol & prostitution.
Tilly Devine & the Razor Gang Wars, 1927-31