D.C Halsted 9/8 FBU

D.C Halsted seems to have been a fairly prolific maker. I've restored several of his blades this year both wedges and hollow grinds but this is the first blade of his I've seen over 1 inch. I was surprised not to find him listed in Tweedale's Directory. Does anyone have information on him?
This blade measure 1 3/16 inches and will wear some horn scales when it's finished. Not much needs to be done to the blade. It's in nice condition.
Attachment 204907Attachment 204908Attachment 204909Attachment 204910

....................faint........:dropjaw:

Goodgoogalymoogaly!

I am a fan of D.C. Halsted, with one of my favourites in my rotation being one. So this one is making me a little weak in the knee!

Nice catch!

Nice! Strange lack of info on Halsted. Perhaps someone will come along who knows? It certainly seems a ringer for a Wade and Butcher!

Very nice Blade,but that notch,what is it for:)

I love it ! Congrat's karlej, that is a very sweet blade. Please post the pics when it gets the new shoes.

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Very nice Blade,but that notch,what is it for:)

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....................:rofl2:

That vaping is working for you....good one...hilarious!

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Very nice Blade,but that notch,what is it for:)

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We cannot tell you, Bill. We would have to kill you if we did! ";"

I have summoned the Great Neil Miller. If anyone knows of Halsted, it would be him? :shrug:

Thanks Tom, but I fear this has been a bit of a fruitless search.

I have searched all of the census returns for Sheffield from 1841 to 1881 with not one hit - plenty of Halsteads but nary a D. C. Halsted. All this despite a post on a saw collectors forum that there was a "...D. C. Halsted listed in Sheffield in the 1860s making razors..." with no source cited, so not helpful.

I have seen terrible mis-spellings on the census list, so I tried 'Halstead' instead - still no results.

I then tried the Hallamshire list of Freemen of the Cutlers Company - not one Halsted is recorded. The same holds true for the list of Apprentices.

On another saw collectors forum I saw a listing for a 'cast.steel' (sic) back saw made by "Swords & Hastead" speculatively dated 1850s. This company probably evolved from 'Swords, Halstead & Loomis" a US hardware importer in the 1830s - 1840s, who supplied hardware, cutlery etc.

This prompted me to look at the US census returns - hooray! Found a David C. Halsted in the 1880 census - but he turns out to have been a government official who died that same year.

The 1861 US census turned up a Dewitt C. Halsted - but he turns out to have been a farmer. So - Back to the UK where I find a reference to Halsted & Sons, but they turn out to have been ironmongers and iron and brass founders and smiths - in Chichester, established in the 1840.

More searching turned up a Halstead & Sons in Sheffield with a picture of a knife bearing their name. Further research shows the father to have been an F. L. Halsted, so back to the drawing board...

Attachment 204985

There are just two references to D. C. Halsted I have found, and both are speculative and cite no supporting evidence. I find the lack of information about him flabbergasting, particularly as there are so very many of his razors in circulation - he must have been a very prolific maker indeed.

Regards,
Neil

It does not make me feel any better, Neil, but I could not find a thing. Only the name shown in Goins (useless as usual!).
I suspect an export/import operation such as H and JW King in New York which sold obvious Wade and Butchers with their name only upon them.

Attachment 204986

What puzzles me is the 'Sheffield' upon the Halsted. Perhaps a dealer in Australia or someplace where 'Sheffield' would have been a selling point? Still, it proclaims 'Manufactured by'. Odd!

Alright - I confess - my great-grandfather made it, now send it back to me...it's rightful heir! :p

Wow! What a huge blade. I have one query with regard to that blade and other similar ones I've seen, including some W&Bs. Why do they have such a large pivot hole? Wouldn't they 'rattle' and move on a normal sized pin?

The hole was punched in during the forging process in the old days. They used no blade spacers, so the blade-to-scale friction kept them quite tight. Not really an issue, but many nowadays make bushings to make the hole smaller.

Read 'em and weep: https://books.google.com/books?id=ia...ffield&f=false

Tells me a D C Halsted reported on the 1854 World's Fair in New York?

Tom,
Check page 37
does not do much to advance the knowledge base.....but it does something.....I hope, in the right hands.

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

Tells me a D C Halsted reported on the 1854 World's Fair in New York?

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Originally Posted by WW243

Tom,
Check page 37
does not do much to advance the knowledge base.....but it does something.....I hope, in the right hands.

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Well. I suppose that this particular D.C. Halsted was on a panel of English top-dogs which seemingly voted their favorites at the fair and presented their findings to the Monarchy. Must have been an important and influential person.
I wonder why his name does not come up in research of cutlery makers, or anything else, for that matter?

Keep digging, Bill! I have faith in you! :tu

Well, there were 14 Jurors judging :Cutlery and Edge Tools. Iron, Brass, Pewter, and General Hardware including Lamps, Chandeliers and Kitchen Furniture.
D.C. Halsted, Esq., 119 Maiden Lane was one of the judges.

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Originally Posted by WW243

Well, there were 14 Jurors judging :Cutlery and Edge Tools. Iron, Brass, Pewter, and General Hardware including Lamps, Chandeliers and Kitchen Furniture.
D.L. Halsted, Esq., 119 Maiden Lane was one of the judges.

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Precisely why I suspect this (our) Mr Halsted (If this is indeed the man whose name is on the razors) to have been a businessman, knowledgeable of all manufactured items in order to have this post. Same sort of man who marketed razors with his name upon them as well as most anything else. There have been thousands who did!

Wayne - my post from a 2009 thread:

"...Some of those large misshapen holes are not the product of wear and tear - a lot of old razors, particularly pre-1900 ones, had the hole punched in them (the smaller hole in an anvil, next to the hardy hole, was used by the hole-puncher) by the forger. These take on the shape of the punch - I've seen a lot of them, and most are squarish or oblong and very wide compared to the drilled holes in more modern razors. So - at a point in time it was normal for the hole to be over-sized, and those old razors don't seem to have any more problems than the ones produced much later (if anything I think they had less problems!)...

Obviously, the hole started out being smaller/thinner but after some time the wear on the punch flattened the top an mushroomed it out a bit, so it had to be re-ground at the tip, which in time made the punch smaller and the conical part smaller and thus wider.

The impact of the punch on the still red hot steel had the effect of displacing the metal, throwing up a ridge around the hole. You can sometimes see this during restoration - a preliminary grind of the tang shows that the area around the punch mark stands proud. This is true of the makers mark, too. So - depending on the planes of the razor at the tang and amount of impact distortion in the metal, the scales grip the tang tighter than one might think. Note that these oldies never had washers between tang and inner scale surfaces either, which accounts for some of the strange grooves and wear patters you sometimes see when you disassemble them.

Regards,
Neil

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

Precisely why I suspect this (our) Mr Halsted (If this is indeed the man whose name is on the razors) to have been a businessman, knowledgeable of all manufactured items in order to have this post. Same sort of man who marketed razors with his name upon them as well as most anything else. There have been thousands who did!

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I was beginning to think this Tom as the blade (as you so rightly point out) looks remarkably like a W&B.

However, I just cannot get past the mark "Manufactured by D. C. Halsted" - I can't believe that any maker, let alone W&B, would allow this deception. I must go with what is on the tang - D. C. Halsted made it. 'Razor Manufacturer' is a recognized term in the old census records, usually followed by "employing [so many] men and [so many] boys.

Regards,
Neil.

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Originally Posted by Neil Miller

I was beginning to think this Tom as the blade (as you so rightly point out) looks remarkably like a W&B.

However, I just cannot get past the mark "Manufactured by D. C. Halsted" - I can't believe that any maker, let alone W&B, would allow this deception. I must go with what is on the tang - D. C. Halsted made it. 'Razor Manufacturer' is a recognized term in the old census records, usually followed by "employing [so many] men and [so many] boys.

Regards,
Neil.

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Then, I wonder if 'Blanks for concaving' were not purchased, the razors finished/stamped? Any good cutler could accomplish it and deem himself the 'maker' and would not show up as an 'official' maker.

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

Then, I wonder if 'Blanks for concaving' were not purchased, the razors finished/stamped? Any good cutler could accomplish it and deem himself the 'maker' and would not show up as an 'official' maker.

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Ugh, I see a cart winding down cobbled filthy streets in mid-ninteenth century London with the cart pusher shouting: 'cockles, mussels, blanks for concaving....'

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Originally Posted by WW243

Tom,
Check page 37
does not do much to advance the knowledge base.....but it does something.....I hope, in the right hands.

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I do believe you are right, Bill (I've got my party-hat on, anyway! :) ) for this particular D. C. Halsted was an American. A New York City Directory for 1854 informs us that he was in hardware:

Attachment 205039

His first name is David, so I am supposing he is the same 'government officer' I found in my previous listing. Having a Govt. post, being in hardware and being a juror for the 1854 New York Exhibition for the cutlery panel just pile the evidence up more. That 1854 Exhibition was in response to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London and a lot of erudite english men reported on it compiling 'Special Reports' for the Houses of Parliament, the reports being printed in London which is why it seems at first glance that Halsted was English.

It seems like Halsted started off in the firm of Ingoldsby, Boisseau & Co:

Attachment 205042

The reference is from a retrospective by Scoville, published 1868. From another 1841 City Directory we find this:

Attachment 205043

Which confirms the link between the law firm and hardware.

Regrettably I have to discard my previous reservation about 'Manufactured By' as the razor was most definitely not manufactured by Halsted (a clerk by profession) but was imported from Sheffield with this marking on the tang - an act which I find curiously heinous.

Regards,
Neil

Just to be clear....Neil, you meant to say 'most definitely not...'

Bill,

I most definitely did - or did I..? :)

Seriously, I have amended the post, the error being due to my failing eyesight, I suppose - I can not focus on anything at the moment and seem to leave out bits when I am typing or typing things twice without realising it - how bloody marvelous is that?!

Regards,
Neil

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Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Bill,

I most definitely did - or did I..? :)

Seriously, I have amended the post, the error being due to my failing eyesight, I suppose - I can not focus on anything at the moment and seem to leave out bits when I am typing or typing things twice without realising it - how bloody marvelous is that?!

Regards,
Neil

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Neil,
As long as you are able to saying something like "curiously heinous," I think you are sound. I too am noticing the ravages of time and mixing of various Dr.'s versions of better living through chemistry. We soldier on through the humiliation of inhabiting a rotting pillar of flesh knowing that we were once the Colossus of Rhodes!

Well, Gents. I suppose it is time to do the little SRP victory dance! You lead, Bill! :D

That is a beast of a blade!!

In researching H King I found an interesting tidbit. Messers King and Halsted were almost certainly acquainted as Hezekiah King began his business life in 1840 with JD Wolfe, Bishop, and Co .
Located at 87 Maiden Lane!

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Originally Posted by WW243

Neil,
... We soldier on through the humiliation of inhabiting a rotting pillar of flesh knowing that we were once the Colossus of Rhodes!

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I find "The Dandy of the Dardenelles" rather apt. :)

Regards,
Neil

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Originally Posted by Neil Miller

I find "The Dandy of the Dardenelles" rather apt. :)

Regards,
Neil

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Figures you'd go all Oxford/Cambridge on me......

What an amazing blade you've got there.
Cant give any background, but here's my widdle 6/8" It suffers from width envy for sure.

Attachment 205111

Here, I hope, is the link to the book from which Neil snipped his image, the Scoville book.....kind of fascinating reading if you look in the index for Boisseau...then turn the pages. I think the tale for our purposes begins on page 44:
https://archive.org/details/oldmerchantsofne04scovuoft
Many thanks to the OP and Tom & Neil, this has been really fun!

Thank you all for researching this puzzle. Most unexpected to find D.C. Halsted was a New York merchant. :chapeau

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Originally Posted by WW243

Here, I hope, is the link to the book from which Neil snipped his image, the Scoville book.....kind of fascinating reading if you look in the index for Boisseau...then turn the pages. I think the tale for our purposes begins on page 44:
https://archive.org/details/oldmerchantsofne04scovuoft
Many thanks to the OP and Tom & Neil, this has been really fun!

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Thanks for the link, Bill! Old Boisseau was quite the man. Hard to stop reading it there!

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

Thanks for the link, Bill! Old Boisseau was quite the man. Hard to stop reading it there!

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Agreed Tom...really pulled you into a familiar yet bizarre world of the not to distant past.