Thread: hives stubtail

im trying to find info for this maker and the middleton in my other post. anyone familiar with either? ill be restoring both and have no clue what the scales were like on this one so if anyone has another example from this maker id love to see it. I have seen others as well but none of the scales looked to be origina to the razors.

Cool! I suspect Scienceguy. Thaeris, and Voidmoster shall be along. They are really into those!
Post it in the stub-tailed shavers club!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Cool! I suspect Scienceguy. Thaeris, and Voidmoster shall be along. They are really into those!
Post it in the stub-tailed shavers club!

will do, I wanted to shave with it before posting it there, haha.

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.

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 !