I mentioned earlier that I'd also gotten an 1805 set. Today, for want of something fresh to shave with, I cleaned up the Monday blade and honed it. Seemed like a good time to get pictures.
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The box is larger than my Rodgers set, but still pretty small. The top is decorated with tooled Morocco leather. It's got brass hinges and ornate little hook & eye clasps to hold it shut. The sides are a less vivid red than the top.
But check out the tooling on the leather.
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The box definitely shows signs of being north of 200 years old, thankfully, the razors are a bit less weathered.
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I'd be happier if Tuesday weren't missing, since the chances of me ever finding a replacement are basically nil, but what I've got here is plenty awesome.
The set was made around 1805 by M. Bataille, a surgical instruments manufacturer in Bordeaux. In 1806 he won a silver medal at the Paris Exposition for his fine lithotomy catheter (yeah, I think I'll pass on restoring and using one of those), but he also exhibited this set of razors, which were described as being made with great care. I'll agree to that.
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(You can see bigger versions of all these pictures by right-clicking them and choosing 'view image')
I doofused a bit when I did the first pass of cleaning and reassembled the half-scales backwards. These were designed exactly the opposite of all the other gunstock scales I'd seen, and I was already at a disadvantage because I don't have any nickel-silver rod in the oddball size this used. I'll probably drill out the pins at some point and assemble it the right way, but it's not any big deal as it stands. It just means the handle doesn't fit quite as nicely back into its formed resting spot.
The interchangeable blades snap in very similar to the early 1820's Sheffield models, except Bataille designed the hollow tang with filed jimps, jimps that continue on to each blade and are cut across the spring-steel that locks the blades in place. I was pretty pleasantly surprised at how little rust there was inside the mechanism. That'd be super easy to get full of water, rust, and push it all apart. The blades fit in just a little bit loose, but they're comfortable to hone and strop.
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(you can see the spring-steel middle of the tang, which is the part that snaps and holds the blades into place)
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Down in there where the blades rest, the box has felt pads glued onto angled rests so that the blades don't touch the bottom (though clearly that doesn't prevent the bottom from getting cut up, but those cuts happened long, long ago).
There you can see the locking barb on all the blades. The mechanism is incredibly simple. A spring-arm on the bottom of the tang pushes up. The rounded end of the flange pushes that down as you slide the blade in, then a keyed notch at the top locks it into place. To take the blade out again, you push down on the spring arm so that the notch comes out of the cut on the top, then just pull the blade out. It sounds much more complicated than it is.
At some point I'll clean it all up a bit better and replace the missing felt inside the box, but today I'll shave with Monday. I'm not very picky about matching my days of the week.