Thread: New stubtail. Looking for id help.

I picked this up on the bay and it just came in. Seller claims it says Hannah. The stamp is a bit hard for me to make out. But any info on this beauty would be greatly appreciated.

I think it says "WARRANTY"!

+1 Warranted

Yeah, or something like that, it was common to put the like on them.

My money is on Warranted.

The Warranted stamp was mostly used between 1800 and 1820.
The stub tail was little used after 1820.
The double shoulders has me wondering though, they were not so common in these days.
(Well defined tangs were common in use from 1810-1820.)
All according to Standard Guide to Razors, 3rd ed.

Originally Posted by str8fencer

The double shoulders has me wondering though, they were not so common in these days.

Very true. But sometimes these old razors were reground decades down the line. Lumus complains about it in one of his articles (written in the 1920s), saying something like you should never take your wedge blades to a professional cutler for sharpening, because the razors will be returned hollow ground.

I had no idea that happened before I read that, but found it very interesting.

I was curious about the double shoulder too. It is a hollow ground, which it thought didn't come around until after stub tails.

There are many types of 'warranted' steel, warranted being used to mean guaranteed. Ascribing an age to such an item, especially when 'warranted' is not accompanied by any other wording and just used an umbrella term for guaranteed performance is quite shaky. For instance, there is:

warranted shear steel (steel made from rolling rather than hammering blister steel, giving a more homogeneous steel)
warranted best shear steel
warranted best double shear steel
warranted cast steel (meaning crucible steel - as above, but breaking the blistered bar into pieces and re-melting in a crucible for maximum homogeneity)
warranted best cast steel
warranted best
warranted silver steel

...and there are others!

Earlier cast steel (aka crucible steel) is usually stamped 'acier fondu', but although this originated (some say!) with Benjamin Huntsman selling cast steel to France and the finished items being exported back to the UK, both 'acier fondu' and 'cast steel' existed as stamps on metal items at the same time in history. Which makes it very hard to give an earliest date for cast steel - all we can do is go back to the date of Huntsman's discovery (or rediscovery as I prefer to call it) in 1742. No doubt 'warranted' was soon (within two or three decades) appended to the term, as Huntsman's cast steel was widespread by the 1770s.

It was still used in the 1820s by William Butcher (of Wade & Butcher) who was listed as a producer of edged tools and steel refiner (of warranted cast steel) in 1822. Items marked 'warranted' with other wordings such as 'best' 'cast steel' etc were still appearing in the 1890s, and there are items with 'warranted cast steel' stamped alongside 'Sheffield, England' making them post 1891. The last commercial making of the product was in the late 1960s.

'Warranted' may have been prevalent in the early 1800s, but the double shoulders of that razor date to much later, which could well be the result of re-grinding, but the shape of the tang is wrong. If it was an early (say 1820s) razor than the tang would be wide by the shoulder - this one is the reverse - wider at the pivot. So, not only does it seem to have been hollow ground, but the tang has been reworked to give the whole a much more modern shape.

People seem to think that by some form of mutual consent, razor makers agreed to stop making stub tail razors overnight in 1830. This is not so - there are 1840s examples and I suppose some persisted much later. To be safe, 1850 would be a better date to adhere to.

So, you could have an enormous range, from late 1700s to 1850ish for the age of the razor. as for the maker - I'm afraid you will never, ever know who made it.

Regards,
Neil

It seems it has been reground as is evidenced by the double stabilizer.