Thread: W Pepys

This razor came in the mail yesterday, my first stub tail. It also came with questions. The seller said he could not read the marking on the tang but it is clearly W PEPYS and I have done the homework and read all of the great material available through this site on W PEPYS. Seller thought the scales were heavy plastic. Tonight I will do the hot pin test, but there is a jagged hole in one scale about 3 mm diameter which might be a bug bite. I've never seen a bug bite but I thought they would be more rounded. Also there are no collars, none, just mashed pins. The Razor flops and the pins don't look like they can take much more mashing. Lead wedge.
Rust around the pivot pin.
Thanks
I'm interested in any ideas about this razor and how to proceed getting it ready to shave again.

The way the scales shine reminds me of plastic, the originals may have been replaced somewhere down the line, the part about the pins being smashed seems to validate the idea. Go ahead and do the hot pin test to be sure.

Should you decide to re scale, go ahead and pop the pins and HAND SAND the blade using some automotive wet and dry to get out the rough stuff as much as possible without sanding through the blade. Use grits from the highest grit that works up to the highest grit that will eliminate previous scratch marks. Once you have done this polish the blade with a quality polish such as Mothers, Maas or Simichrome.

I will stop here, this should keep you busy and out of trouble for the time being, building and installing new scales will be an entirely separate process as will setting the bevel and finish honing. We can pick up on these later.

William Hasledine Pepys (1775 - 1856) came from London (a place named Poultry, in the Cheap Ward of London, near Old Jewry), and was described as a 'city gentleman' and 'man of science.' A relative of the famous Samuel Pepys, he followed his father - another William (William H. Pepys, so they could both have had exactly the same name - I have not been able to find a reference to the fathers full middle name) - into the cutlery and surgical instrument making business, being made his fathers apprentice in 1789 and earning his freedom in 1796. He was made Master of the London Cutlers Guild on two occasions (1822 and 1828). He was a gifted chemist, and a young Michael Faraday attended his lectures at the Royal Institution.

Together with William Allen he found the composition of carbon dioxide. He also made a large Voltaic (electric) coil, which Sir Humphrey Davy used in his own lectures.

Not content with making edged instruments, being a Fellow of The Royal Society, lecturing about gas, etc, he was also a director of the company introducing gas-lighting into London, as well as being a director of a steamship company.

With just the first initial it is at first unclear whether the razor is the work of the father or the son. William the father died in 1805, so the son looks like the maker. After the death of his father, he extended their company into the making of scientific instruments.

Not bad for a first stubbie! Couldn't have found a more historic piece if you tried. I would be very wary of doing anything to it. A close-up of the bug 'bite' (they aren't bites as such) would help confirm whether the scales are horn or not - horn can take on a very deep lustre indeed and look like plastic, indeed, it was one of the first thermoplastics!

Regards,
Neil

PS: His father was also William Hasledine Pepys, as witness his will released in 1806. Confusing, eh?!

Neil Miller,
My father was William Albert Clark, his father was Roland Perry Clark and I am William Perry Clark: Roland was a career drinker, William Albert Clark kept the banner flying, and me: let's just say that I know when to quit but could cut back a little.
Ok, now you have me terrified and I'm sending the razor to our friend in Philadelphia intact. (Our quiet friend is in the middle of setting about a million and a half pop rivets which might make anyone quiet).

Perry, eh? I can't hear that name without thinking of Perry Smith, one of the killers of the kindly Clutter family interviewed and written about by Truman Capote in his worrying book "In Cold Blood". I must have read that book in the mid 1970s, but I guess I still think about it on a regular basis. I found it very disturbing how everyday people can do such despicable, cold-blooded, evil things.

I hope you haven't got any of those tendencies, Bill...

Regards,
Neil

Me, I get weepy over commercials showing dogs and cats that have been abused and are about to be euthanized. That was a great book. I would say that by looking at the news that the world is littered with Perry Smiths, sadly.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Perry, eh? I can't hear that name without thinking of Perry Smith, one of the killers of the kindly Clutter family interviewed and written about by Truman Capote in his worrying book "In Cold Blood". I must have read that book in the mid 1970s, but I guess I still think about it on a regular basis. I found it very disturbing how everyday people can do such despicable, cold-blooded, evil things.

I hope you haven't got any of those tendencies, Bill...

Regards,
Neil

So with same name guessing same maker's mark. Is it possible to approximately date this razor?

The sad end to this thread: I sent the Pepys to the wild man of Phili and he put it under a very slick looking binocular microscope and found a crack 1mm or so at the end of the chip in the blade. I looked at it this morning with a loupe, it is there and really a shame. The seller offered a full refund but the whole thing induces melancholy. I offered to give the seller the information that Neil Miller provided and he wasn't interested, he just wanted to know where the crack was. I'm not a collector so if a razor cannot also shave it has no value to me. But would it be of some value to someone? Oh, and the scales were indeed horn.