Thread: The Butcher Shop

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

fabulous blades guys,love them all, but a couple questions,has anyone ever seen a N.O.S W&B, 1800s 8/8+ plus razor for Barbers use,mint as new, no resto work,I never have.
At any rate I have a couple nice ones that I am restoring at this time,I know that the flats of the tang and the top of the spine was orig Highley polished like the blades above.I have a major fetish for orig.grind marks,I absolutly love them and always try to preserve them,to me they are things of beauty.
Nobody loves pits, they can to a point be worked out by alot of wheel work,removing alot of metal in the process,also losing the grind marks and ending up with a razor that is 100% chrome like,pretty for sure,But I do not think they actually looked like that in OEM form,I think the blades had a matt finish,your thoughts? am talking about blades from the 1800s here.

Back in the day, there were two types of finishes for cutlery. The matt finish you speak of was referred to as a "glaze" whereas the highly polished was referred to as "crocus". It was common on pocket knives to have the front side of the blade with a crocus and the back side with a glaze finish.

I agree with everything you've said and do my best to preserve original grind marks on the older stuff where possible.

I've been in more than a few heated discussions about "pimped out" old pocket knives that had been buffed to a mirror shine that they never had in their day.

Saddest part is that shiny sells best on ebay.

Some GREAT looking blades today!!

THANKS!!