Thread: hives stubtail

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

I'm away from my books and sources at the moment, so this is necessarily brief.

It's most likely William Hives, son of John, apprenticed in Stannington and freed in 1797. The blade dates to 1805-1815 or so. When I get back home I'll get some pictures of similar razors from the period in original scales.

are you kidding me? I mean.... are you serious?! you just have this stuff neatly folded into the wrinkles of your brain?! you are amazing, that's all I can say!

Originally Posted by silverloaf

are you kidding me? I mean.... are you serious?! you just have this stuff neatly folded into the wrinkles of your brain?! you are amazing, that's all I can say!

When you spend a lot of time concerned with early Sheffield history it starts to sink in...

edit: here's a couple examples of what the scales might be similar to stylistically. I have a gut feeling they would have been slightly curved.

Hah. Well, my amazing brain wrinkles are slightly illusory. I'd dug up that information before I had to head out of the house for a while, then I posted when I could get a few minutes to spare. So it wasn't like I just knew about William Hives. I did have to look him up!

In any event, here's an actual razor and an 1815 engraving of a similar style razor:



(You can right click the image and 'view image' to see a high res version).

I believe the one in the book is scaled in tortoise shell.

Also, I had the date of his freedom wrong. Here's the full data:

William Hives, son of John (farmer) living at The Elm (a farmhouse on the outskirts of the parish) He was apprenticed to William Spooner -- a knife grinder -- of Stannington (a sort of suburb of Sheffield that produced a lot of famous folks, like William Greaves) and freed in 1794.

There's also a Joseph Hives, son of John, also living at The Elm, but listed as a Yeoman. That's almost certainly the same John Hives, and thus Joseph would be the brother of William. Joseph was also apprenticed, him to Joseph Roberts, general cutler (and quite likely the Roberts whose name is sometimes found on old, old Sheffield razors). Joseph Hives served his apprenticeship and was freed in 1790.

The chances are pretty good that the two brothers worked together. Looking over the records again, I think Joseph is the more likely name, as he was the older brother and apprenticed into the more general trade.

Zak, I stole you this beautiful picture

Originally Posted by Thaeris

Zak, I stole you this beautiful picture

The entire book is available here.

Unfortunately, the only copy that has any kind of information other than pictures is in the Sheffield library. There was a limited print run reproduction of that version made in the early 1970's, and you can sometimes find used copies cheap. That's what my picture there is from. However, the BnF version is full, hand-tinted color!

There aren't many in it, but it's the earliest pictures I've found anywhere of Sheffield razors.

Ah, Gallica

You have nice references

Thx for sharing !

I was really surprised to find it there!

Smith's Key seems to have been a set of engravings of old Sheffield tools intended to be used by dealers. IE, they could use Smiths' Key to find plates of the items they had for sale and they could buy those and use them when hawking their wares to retailers. But it's all a bit speculative, since the book itself contains zero information in it.

The copy in the Sheffield library has some letters between the publisher and the engraver (Joseph Smith), as well as an incomplete price-list, entirely of products made by Richard Cam and Marshes and Shepherd. But the book has MANY things that neither Cam nor M&S made, and M&S didn't exist when the book was first published. So it's all a bit mysterious. Still, hundreds of engravings of old tools!

There are a couple other catalogs like it, but I don't know of any way of seeing them short of visiting the Victoria & Albert museum in London (which I plan to do if it's remotely feasible). Supposedly, the Victoria & Albert museum has a similar catalog of tools from 1780.

Very interesting razor! Where do you guys find these relics? I've probably been to at least 20 different antique stores and the only old stubtail I've found is a rescale/regrind.

Originally Posted by silverloaf

are you kidding me? I mean.... are you serious?! you just have this stuff neatly folded into the wrinkles of your brain?! you are amazing, that's all I can say!

You didn't know that? You should visit more often!

Originally Posted by JP5

Very interesting razor! Where do you guys find these relics? I've probably been to at least 20 different antique stores and the only old stubtail I've found is a rescale/regrind.

You didn't know that? You should visit more often!

The original thread was a long time ago!

I get them mostly through ebay, or online auctions. I've gotten some really cool stuff just by being friendly at the folks selling stuff.

Above is my Hives razor, The back scale had a big chunk missing, I replaced that with a new one I made to match from black horn. The washers are from Austin Kennedy as the originals were almost gone.
Most weeks I walk past Joseph Hive's grave in Ecclesfield Churchyard I think of the razor above and all the owners it must have had in it's 200+ year history.