Thread: Escher green-yellow!

Originally Posted by Swifty2point0

Does anybody know how to Date an escher hone?? id love to know a tighter timeframe on when it was produced

Coming back to a possible dating of your hone. The Barber scene on the Escher & Co hones was used for a long time, from at least mid of the 19th till mid of the 20th century.
The Escher & Co company existed till they were taken over by Pike and Escher and later the Schleifmittel AG, which existed as an operating company between 1932 and the 1950ths. But also the Schleifmittel AG still used the old Escher & Co labels.

On the label there is a special indication that excludes an early production in the 19th century. The wording "Made in Germany" was originally created by the British government in connection with the so-called Merchandise Marcs act in 1887 - with the aim to label bad quality products from foreign countries. And in fact at this time german products did not have really good quality. But the times changed and also the quality of german products. At beginning of the 20th century germany began to export a lot of products and latest after WW1 the label Made in Germany had changed from a mark of bad goods to a seal of good quality geman products. It still took some time though until this seal really was used by german companies to brand their products.

I personally think that your hone is a later one, sold by the Schleifmittel AG somehow between 1930 and 1940. If it was of earlier production in the 1920ths it should have the company name Pike & Escher on the box. The company was founded before WW1 and took over Escher& Co:



The Barbers delight hones of the Schleifmittel AG carry the "Made in Germany" seal and Pike was not a member of thi new company any more. So the label changed back to the old Escher & Co name. Following is copy from a catalogue of the Schleifmittel AG, not dated, but most probably from the 1930th/40th:



There is a small chance that the hone was sold shortly before WW1 though.