Thread: Not all gems are diamonds

I had a shaving experience this morning that has put me in awe of older than the hills razors. I recently acquired, after much looking, waiting and drooling, a c.1820's razor at a bargain price (Sunday afternoon and Phrank was out of town that day, he told me so.) A smiling wedge with broken scales. It had had some wear over the years as the maker's mark was gone except for a ....yd(?) and a worn ....ranted still there. It had a wide bevel and I'm sure only (if at all) over the years only one layer of tape was used. Had to see if it would/could shave before I made new scales. Three layers of tape and ran it over my 4 and 8k Norton's. Did not even think of my Nani 12k. Taped the scales together, stropped a back up of more recent vintage just in case, and had one of the, if not the smoothest, 8k shaves so far.

Based solely on this one experience I'd be almost willing to trade in most of my current razors for an equal number of c.1800 to c.1850 razors. I don't know if it is the steel of the razor (I suspect Sheffield) or the micro bevel I put on it over the wider bevel but only one or two of my more recent in age razors have even come close to what I felt with this razor (hereby dubbed Maurice ((maybe the name of a former owner)).)

Yeah, I know, no picture = no belief. There will be a future post in Show and Tell when I can get to rescaling Maurice. Blasphemy might be committed because of the idea I have for the new scales so patience and you will be rewarded.

Some of the ugliest make their mark in history by being outstanding. Old Sheffield's most often do repay the effort of renewing with a great deal of interest.
~Richard

I am pretty happy with my early to mid 1800's Sheffields, but I have to confess they are close to mmid than early.