Thread: That 1700's Show

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.



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:


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.



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

That is rare.. What is the deal with the scales?
Thanks

Originally Posted by JOB15

That is rare.. What is the deal with the scales?
Thanks

No scales are original as far as I can see. I just polished them up....
Regards Peter

Originally Posted by hatzicho

No scales are original as far as I can see. I just polished them up....
Regards Peter

Beautiful Tortoise .

Beautiful and historic razor Peter!

Originally Posted by JOB15

That is rare.. What is the deal with the scales?
Thanks

A razor that old, they are original tortoise and not fake.

Originally Posted by hatzicho

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.

Very cool piece. Any idea if the razor would have been made in England, imported, and marked with Scharff?

The tortoise is original no doubt about that. It looks so shiny just from the polishing, so that you can think of modern faux tortoise. But this is how the razor looked like when I got it:



You see especially on the backside - this is not man-designed tortoise.

Also the razor had been very slightly regrind, this was done only on the blade itself, no signs of reworking at the tang. Therefore I believe, it was not dismanteled from its original scales for the regrind.

Regards Peter

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

Very cool piece. Any idea if the razor would have been made in England, imported, and marked with Scharff?

Well that is of course a possibility. But the production factory the Scharff company had in Remscheid was quite large. And as said, they produced every kind of iron tools and razor blankets at that time were quite simple to forge and grind, no special knowledge needed. So much easier and more profitable to produce the razors by themselfes. Also the import and sales company was located in Frankfurt. So they needed to import the razors with shipping to Frankfurt, then sending to Remscheid for marking, scaling and honing, then back to Frankfurt...To complicated maybe.

Regards Peter

Originally Posted by engine46

A razor that old, they are original tortoise and not fake.

Of course they are not fake and i never suggested that they were. I just thought they was worth a mention.