Thread: Bob from Boston - antique blades

Hi all, I've been interested in straight razor shaving for a while and this seems like a great resource or getting some good information. I just recently purchased a cheap-ish blade to give a whirl as my first shave and to see if its something I'm willing to fork over more cash for, but I actually inherited a couple of blades which is what sparked my interest. I'm not sure if this is the right place to post for information, but I figured I'd toss em up and see if anyone has any input.

The boxes I have for these are labeled:
1) Gullatt Razor Co.
Union City, GA
with the "top" part reading:
Novelty
Cutlery Co.
Canton O.

and 2) Quality
Wilbert
Guaranteed
and the top as :
Specially Hand-Forged
Best Sheffield Steel
Price: $3.50.

My guess is that these are both around 80-100 years old. Anyone familiar with these brands/blades and have any input? The handles seem to be just cheap plastic, but the one that came in the Wilbert box and has American Beauty on the blade itself and Silver Beauty on the base part of the blade (pardon my ignorance about the different parts of the razor...) seems to be pretty solid and in decent shape. I'm trying to determine if these are worth spending some money to restore/clean/sharpen and maybe even get a new handle for. Any thoughts at all appreciated!

Hi, Bob!

From one Noob Bob to another, "Howdy!"

If there's an answer to be had about straight-razor shaving, you'll find it here!

Mighty good people here.

I have a Novelty Razor Co. that is a good shaver. Clean them up and get them honed & tell us how they shave...that's the important part!

Nice finds. You can try your hand a wet sanding, and polishing them up if you have time and skill, You can also try getting the opionion of one of our restorers here. We have many, I'm sure some will chime in. The rust looks bad, but it depends on how deep it goes, sometimes it can be cleaned off, other times it can't. So, at this point it really depends....Good luck to you...