Thread: Help Identifying a Handmade Japanese Razor

Originally Posted by Dovo1695

The curious thing about this is that it sounds like Iwasaki stopped making the Western style knives in the 1980's. Mr. Stanley told my brother that these were newly made. I guess it's possible that Iwasaki made these knives as a special request of a good friend and fellow master craftsman. It's also possible that the knives were made previously but not sold.



In my brief searches today for Western Style tamahagane Iwasaki knives, mine is by far the oldest batch number that I've ever seen at 1901. The next oldest I've seen was around 1800. That said, it's been 15 years or so, so my brother's recollection may not be perfect either. I'm not sure what to make of it all.

My best guess is that Mr. Stanley was able to persuade someone who knew Shigeyoshi Iwasaki or Mr. Mizuochi, who has run Sanjo Seisakujo since S. Iwasaki retired, to cough up one of the NOS blades that Sanjo Seisakujo is rumored to have. I recall reading somewhere, probably something from Jim Rion, that he saw NOS tamahagane blades when he was given a tour of the manufacturing facility and was told flat out that they were not for sale at any price and were reserved for a special circle of friends. This would also explain why yours does not have the typical black scales that we're used to seeing on tI's.

As age goes, I'm the current owner of Stefan's black scaled Iwasaki (serial #1676). At one time I had information (if I recall correctly obtained from from Takeshi at A-Frames Tokyo) on Iwasaki numbering that put mine as manufactured in 1976.

But I'm guessing the time between the manufacture of your blade and the finishing of the razor was probably at least 15 years.

Originally Posted by entropy1049

My best guess is that Mr. Stanley was able to persuade someone who knew Shigeyoshi Iwasaki or Mr. Mizuochi, who has run Sanjo Seisakujo since S. Iwasaki retired, to cough up one of the NOS blades that Sanjo Seisakujo is rumored to have. I recall reading somewhere, probably something from Jim Rion, that he saw NOS tamahagane blades when he was given a tour of the manufacturing facility and was told flat out that they were not for sale at any price and were reserved for a special circle of friends. This would also explain why yours does not have the typical black scales that we're used to seeing on tI's.

As age goes, I'm the current owner of Stefan's black scaled Iwasaki (serial #1676). At one time I had information (if I recall correctly obtained from from Takeshi at A-Frames Tokyo) on Iwasaki numbering that put mine as manufactured in 1976.

But I'm guessing the time between the manufacture of your blade and the finishing of the razor was probably at least 15 years.

Now I'm really intrigued. I googled Takeshi & A-Frames Tokyo and see that he still has a lot of Iwasaki razors. If he was able to date yours, he may be able to date mine. I'm also going to follow up with Harrelson Stanley to get his perspective.

At this point I'm not sure which will be better, passing on the family story of the razor to my oldest son, or handing down the razor to him. The tough part is I have 2 sons (ages 3 and 10months)! According to my brother this knife was ordered as a pair. If I can track down the second one in the original set it would blow my mind.

I've been emailing with Mr. Takeshi Aoki in hopes of getting an estimate of the date of manufacture of my razor. It sounds as though he's handled about as many Iwasaki razors as anyone; by my count he's got 8 Iwasaki Tamahagane Western Razors for sale on website right now.

To be honest I was thrilled that he emailed back at all, because I'm sure he's a busy man and I wasn't looking to buy anything. In fact, he emailed me back within an hour with a remarkably detailed and helpful reply. I was really impressed that he was so generous with his time and expertise despite the fact that I was only looking for information on a knife that I already owned, and not even trying to buy anything.

I'll post the contents of his reply because it contains some information that may be of interest to folks in the future looking for info on these razors. I was especially intrigued to learn that the average lot was under 10 pieces, and that around half of them did not pass inspection. I was also surprised to learn that they still had the ability to make the tamahagane western razors until the flood of 2004. That means it's at least in the realm of possibility that my razor was made around 2000. From what my brother said, it took a year to get them made. Mr. Aoki says it was possible to make them, but that they did not make them often due to the difficulty to make them. So I guess it's less likely, but still possible that my razor was made around 2000. At any rate, I sent him the pictures posted here and this is what he said:


Dear Mr. Nicholas Hall,

Thank you for the mail.

That is a beautiful Iwasaki Tamahagane straight razor.

If the red scale is the original, it is rare color, and it is not often seen.

As you mentioned, it was made with at least 5 of them.

Mr. Iwasaki told me, they could make less than 10 pieces the most of times, and the half of them were not passed the quenching and tempering processes.

Tamahagane is one of purest steel in the world, so it is very hard to success the processes.

I have seen the serial number around #500 before several times, so it might started around there.

I asked Mr. Iwasaki about the earliest number, but he did not remember the exactly the earliest number.

They had succeeded to make Tamahagane straight razors little by little on 1952, and It was his father business too, so I understand what he cannot remembered it.

I have seen the most recently number is #1800 or #1900 or something like that.

I guess that I have never seen #2000.

Therefore, your razor is the one of youngest one.

I have heard that they lost the machine to make scale the disaster of the flood on 2004, so since then, they cannot make the Tamahagane straight razor.

Even around 2004, it is able to make straight razor, but it is not easy to make it, so they do not make often.

Therefore, around 1980, it might be made, as you mentioned.

Originally Posted by Dovo1695

I've been emailing with Mr. Takeshi Aoki

Takeshi is a stand up guy.

I was only looking for information on a knife that I already owned, and not even trying to buy anything

Ok dude, you're in the club...you have to stop calling it a knife

How do the carbon/swedish steel Iwasaki razor's compare?

Originally Posted by WW243

Ok dude, you're in the club...you have to stop calling it a knife

I guess it's true what the say: "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy"...

I'll do a quick "find & replace" before future posts so it's less obvious how unworthy of this thing I am.

I did a bit of searching over the weekend to find other examples of these knives to see if I could piece together a chronology of when they were made. I'll preface this by saying please don't flame me off the forum for being dumb and simplistic without reading my many caveats! Here is the hopelessly oversimplified equation I came up with to determine the age of a Iwasaki Tamahagane Western Razor:

Date of Manufacture= 1946 +(Lot# * 4.5/213)

Here is how I got there:

I learned from Takeshi's email (posted in this thread) that Iwasaki generally made the razors (not knives ww243) in batches of less than 10. This matches my own small research sample; I haven't seen any examples over 9, and the average (median) inspection number is 4 (see the table below).

Additionally, I learned from Takeshi that half of the razors that were made did not pass inspection (same email).

Additionally, I've read in many places that Iwasaki stopped making the Tamahagane Western Razors in the 1980's. The best account is from Jim Rion of Easternsmooth who went to Sanjou to interview Shigeyoshi Iwasaki 4 years ago.

Iwasaki-sensei: Lessons Learned Part 2 | Eastern Smooth: The Blog

And lastly, it's widely known that Kousuke Iwasaki founded the Sanjo Workshop in 1946 (From the preface to Jim Rion's Translation of "Honing Razors and Nihonkamisori". Thanks again to Entropy for attaching a copy of this book in an earlier post.

So to make an (admittedly terrible) estimate of when a particular Iwasaki Tamahagane Western Razor was made, I used the following assumptions below to arrive at the following.

Assumptions:

1. Average lot size for Iwasaki Tamahagane Western Razors (ITWR) is 9 razors
2. Average Yield 4.5
3. Year that Iwasaki Tamahagane Western Razors first (ITWR) made is 1946
4. Year that Iwasaki ceased producing ITWR for sale is 1985 (all I know is "mid 1980's" I assume 1985)
5. Years of Iwasaki procuction is 40
6. Oldest know razor lot # is 1901 (from observed examples in table below)
7. Total Razors produced is 17109 (from assumption 1 above * assumption 6 above)
8. Total ITWR razors produced meeting quality control standards and sold 8555 (assumption 2 * assumption 6)
9. Number of razors produced and sold per year is constant (terrible, hopelessly simplistic assumption for estimate purposes)
10. Number of razors produced per year for sale/use is 214 (assumption 8/assumption 5)
11. First razor produced was 1.1(I realized I was assuming this just before posting, didn't want to renumber 'em all)

So for a terribly rough estimate based on the assumptions above, you can estimate the age of a Iwasaki Tamahagane Razor by dividing the lot number by 47.5 and adding that result to 1946.

Date of Manufacture= 1946 +(Lot# * 4.5/213)


This is obviously a very poor way of estimating the age of a razor, but it's the first time I've ever seen anyone even attempt to do it, so it's meant to be a start, not a good solution.

The weakest assumption is of course that the number of razors produced per year is constant. For all I know, they produced 99% of them in the 1960's when Kousuke Iwasaki was wrote his lecture at the barber college. The best way to get a good estimate would of course be to get a photo-copy of the inspection log book from Sanjou Seisakushou workshop (not gonna happen).

If this looks quixotic to you, it is. I'm now really fascinated by this razor and I can't help myself. I'm guessing some of these assumptions are off or dead wrong, and I'm hoping that folks will chime in to help improve them. It's a rough start at best.

Here are the Iwasaki Tamahagane Razors I've been able to find on the internet with legible Lot and inspection numbers.

This thread has piqued my interest in these razors. I found they have a few for sale on aframes (and annoyingly a lot of "sold" ones still listed). I had a few questions for you guys, as I don't know much about buying used razors.
-There is one listed that obviously is missing a lot of metal... and the price is quite a bit lower than the others. The blade seems clean though. What are the drawbacks of having a razor that has been used or honed this much, or repaired, or whatever may have happened? I imagine it would shave the same as others, but is it possible that at some point through honing/refreshing it would run out of usable metal?? Or is the price lower just because the restoration/use has made it less collectible?
-Some of the others have more metal on the blade, but obviously noticeable marks. The comments he gives for these is pretty much the same, looks used, has rust or stain spots. What are these spots? Parts where the razor has rusted and been cleaned? Are they removable (I would imagine the seller would have removed what he could... one of the razors you can even see a dark spot that has obviously been worked on a lot... the metal around it is totally bright).

Anyway, if I were to buy one of these, it would be more for using than collecting, though of course, a nice looking razor that shaves well is better than an ugly one that shaves well. Thanks in advance for the input, and BTW OP, beautiful razor you have there.

Originally Posted by Dovo1695

I did a bit of searching over the weekend to find other examples of these knives to see if I could piece together a chronology of when they were made...

YOU my friend, have done yeoman work here. Well Done, and Thank You for your research!