Printable View
anyone know anything about this company or its razors. I only found two pics on the net. it is 10/8 3/4 to full hollow square tip dual stabilizers. a pic beside my wade and butcher 15/16 near wedgeAttachment 171649stinton is in as found condition. was stored in a waxed cloth. unsure what type wax or whatever it was but it sure saved the blade.
Pretty sure its Stenton not Stinton, you will find a lot of information on Stenton.
yes I misspelled it here but the search none the less three links and nothing except one on worthpoint close to the size of this thing.one thing I know it was a quality piece in its day. thing sings like a quartet in harmony.
Stenton was, as they say, a character.
Born in the late 1700's, he worked for Greaves, then the Sanderson Brothers, then Wostenholm. He developed a bit of a reputation. "Devil Stenton", the Sanderson workers called him.
His miraculous personality clashed so badly with George Wostenholm that he only worked there for a few years before pulling up stakes and taking his wife and kids to New York City. It's there that he began selling razors stamped 'Wm. Stenton & Son / Again Superior' in the 1840's. However, he also sold razors with his own name on them back to the early 1820's in Sheffield.
The charming fellow lived well into his 80's, long enough to see his son, Robert make friends with the Vanderbilts, invest heavily on their advice and then go completely broke during the Civil War.
Robert died of pneumonia in San Francsico in 1876, after leaving his wife and daughter in the rapidly deteriorating mansion waaaaay out in the boondocks -- the Bronx. The house was built while the area was mostly farmland, but Louisa Stenton and her daughter Alice lived there long enough to see a subway station built just a block west of them. Their house, meanwhile, had turned into something you'd expect vampires to live in -- or river pirates, as the police assumed.
One night in early June, 1906, Alice was murdered by the family attorney. The case was a media circus. For weeks there was no suspect, but finally a family of Italian immigrants who'd been living in the basement of the rundown mansion testified that the lawyer did it. This was after the lawyer's lawyer attempted to give the Italians enough money to go back to Italy forever. The lawyer, Burton W. Gibson was arrested -- made very angry noises because he felt his powerful friends should have prevented the indignity, and was then promptly released the next morning.
During the investigations the police found a lead-lined secret chamber on the second floor of the house filled with treasure. The papers assumed mad old Louisa Stenton was a former river pirate, but more likely they were just some of the fine goods her husband had sold (apart from razors and other cutlery, the Stentons were general merchants). But there's some evidence that -- through Burton Gibson -- Louisa had been involved with the local Irish mafia.
Gibson only killed three or four other people before he was finally put in prison, but then it was for larceny. He'd forged the will of a NYC socialite and Hungarian citizen who claimed (falsely) to be a countess. He strangled her while they were out boating, but after two trials the murder remained unproven. But not the larceny, and so under pressure from the Hungarian embassy (not to mention the English, as Gibson had also made to vanish an Irish boy who had a lot of money), he was stowed in Sing Sing. By that point the press had taken to calling him the Devil Lawyer.
good reading, thanks. if I read this right, the razor would predate the civil war? that would be an excellent find given the condition of the blade. there was no pitting and only very minor rust on the spine, so little and so fine I rubbed it off with a piece of burlap.glad whoever had it thought enough to take care of it.
Yes, absolutely pre-Civil War.
However, it's been reground and extensively worked on at some point -- I'd guess late 1800's, early 1900's when street grinders were a common sight.
That's not a *bad* thing, since most of the reground razors I've used have been superb shavers!
Zack if there ain't the bare bones (no pun) material for a best seller in that brief synopsis ........ I don't know what would be ...... :tu
I have over 200 newspaper articles squirreled away for exactly that purpose!Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
The big question is working my way through the vile maze that is early 1900's NYC public records. Researching 1900's NYC is it's own research topic!
(William Gilchrist's story is even more interesting!)
Zak, can you please tell me how street grinders worked? I'm new to the topic. Any write ups and/or photos? Is it still done today?Quote:
Originally Posted by Voidmonster
Thanks
Bob
I have only ever seen two of these and the other was 8/8 has the exact same scales and grind. either way was a good find to me
This post rounds up most of the info I've got. There were also, in the early 1800's, people who set up small shops to do that kind of work. Much like you see little 'Computer Fixers' in low-rent neighborhoods now.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobCochran
I'll try and get pictures of the ones I've got, but it might be a few days.Quote:
Originally Posted by kn4wd
Until Zak gets around to it...I'll post some before pics of an 8/8 that I have. It's been restored (but no pics yet)...
Attachment 171737Attachment 171738
WP34
Zak, thanks a lot for this! The photo of the Washington, D. C. street grinder interests me because my mother-in-law was born in the city around the same time. To me the photo is now about a bit of local history. I suppose there is no one living who had such a grinding wheel set up and could discuss the business side of it -- whether it was profitable or not, for example. It must have been tough taking the equipment home at night. And as your post suggests there probably wasn't much sophistication: one grindstone was used for everything. Someone wanting a truly good razor honing would have gone elsewhere, perhaps. I'm going to ask mom-in-law if she remembers grinders and/or if she or her mother ever used them. Maybe I better ask her if most people still rode horseback in town back then. I don't know what she might answer, she is quite old now and extremely forgetful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Voidmonster
Bob,
The old-time street grinders were more often than not grinding off rust, chips or bad hone wear with those wheels.
Honing would've been done by stones the same way it is now (and in some cases with the same stones!). I don't have any definitive sources on whether or not the same street vendors and small shops did grinding and honing, but it seems like an entirely reasonable assumption.
For things like scissors and many knives, the coarser stones used to grind would likely have been completely sufficient.
The really old-time guys had their grinding wheels built into little pushcarts, like a wheelbarrow. You can see it in many of the illustrations in that post.
The D.C. area guy was late enough he may well have just loaded his getup into the back of a truck, or perhaps it folded up and there were wheels hidden inside the lower potion. If you look closely, you can see he's got two grindstones and what looks like a small bucket of water.
As a profession, it persisted long enough that I have to assume it was sustainable if not actually profitable. My understanding is that itinerant grinders continued to be a thing in the United States at least into the late 1950's.
