Thread: Help with a W&B

I was sorting through a couple dozen W&Bs looking for my next project. I picked up this one and thought " Man, this is light" I swung it open and naturally it was rusty. Well , a bit more than I felt like doing tonight. But as I glanced at the stamp I read not Wade & Butcher but Wade and Butcher's and the second line I could make out something like , blan---con---.

What does this say under this rust? I cleaned it off a bit not wanting to go further and found what you see here.
The blade is thinner than tin foil , hence a crack in it.
But my question is.
What is this thing?

Sorry can't help you to much here but I do like the double ground blade shape pity for a crack
But I do remember seeing some posts just before Christmas IIRC about a W&B blank for concaving, someone might have the info soon hopefully for you

There is a W&B, Celebrated, Anglo-Saxon Concave Razor, I have one, it has somewhat of a rattler grind to it. Hope this helps.

I ran across this thread awhile ago...
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...concaving.html

I think in my mix I have one also. I also have factory 3/4 size or 1/2 size ,,,, and an odd rigid ,curved W&B DE blade.
But what is a blank for concaving?

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

I ran across this thread awhile ago...
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...concaving.html

Ah, very cool so I know I'm not alone. I just don't think that if they were being sold to regrind they would have stamped it like they did.
Still ,I think it will remain a puzzle. Just wish mine looked like those. Well a little bit of something is better than nothing. It'll remain with the collection.
Thanks so much.

They're all pretty late (the Sheffield + England says after 1891, but I'd bet they're all after 1900).

By that time, the biz was very different, and I assume these were ground in Sheffield and then sent, probably to Germany, for hollow-grinding on machines.

Why they'd mark them that way I really can't say. I'd expect shallower etches designed to be buffed off. Maybe they were sold to the barbering trade?

Adolph Kastor's brother, Sigmund, bought a controlling interest in the company in 1913, then cashed out in 1918 after WWI kicked the whole business square in the pants. In 1920 they were bought out and reformed by the Durham Duplex company, but they kept making things as Wade & Butcher.

Seems odd they'd bother stamping it this way, even to be ground out. That doesn't make sense. Leave it out. By the wording Wade & Butcher's blank for concaving sounds more like they're trying to identify it as their razor blank that might have been used by someone else to go grinding. Using this as a sirt
of master to follow.
This is our blank and we want
you to follow this for grinding.
almost as if there was another company that contracted grinding for other companies and W&B was identifying theirs so it didn't get
lost or confuses with others.

Yeah, it's really odd. There were definitely 3d party companies who did hollow-grinding around the turn of the century (Germany had a literal cottage industry), but it's a mystery why they'd etch the razors that way (they're actually etches, not stamps -- used a lot in that period when a lot of companies were making razors to be branded by whoever retailed them).