A rare german 1700’s
German razors from the 18th century are not very common and very hard to find.
One explanation for this is that razor making wasn’t a typical cutlery work at that time in Germany – contrary to the situation in Sheffield.
The Solingen cutlers were still proud „Sword makers“, producing swords, larger butcher knifes and fine tableware in the 1700‘s.
The making of razors, pocket knifes and so on didn’t belong to the listed and protected works by the cutlery guild. So these things have been produced in the tool industry - a razor was a tool belonging to the barber.
When I found the above shown razor I was a bit suprised about the stamp: Scharff - with „Sch“ and double „ff“. Although knowing about the habbit of old Sheffield makers to give fantasy names to their razors at a certain time, it still seemed very unusual considering the spelling and sound of old english language.
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I contacted Joan Unwinn from the cutlers company but she didn’t find anything comparable in her markbooks.
One day when I looked at the razor again, I remembered about the name Scharff. Some years ago I investigated a label on a thuringian honing stone, that turned out to be from a company Ernst Scharff, Kober & Co. With a nice factory mark of a Pelican, that was granted in 1885.
So I dug a little deeper into the company history and found, that it was founded by Gottfried Scharff 1740 in Remscheid (near Solingen) – as a tool factory. They also ran an iron and steelware shop in Frankfurt and imported and traded english cutlery ware.
You can find their stamp on some old tools such as chisels and pry bars. Here an example:
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Source: www. altebeitel.de
The form and style oft he letters found on the old chissels appear to be the same than the letters on the razor, so I am quite sure that the razor was really made by the german Scharff company.
No shoulder and the typical style would date the razor into the late 1700’s I think.
Nice real tortoise scales round up the package.
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The company Scharff, Kober and Co. were still producing razors in the 19th and 20th century. Also Ernst Scharff from Frankfurt invented a patent for a safety razor in 1891 – which was the basis for a lot of other manufactories in Germany as well as the US for developping their own safety razors.
Stay sharp!
Peter