Thread: History of full hollow?

Gents,

I am trying to date a few older razors, actually quite a few. I picked these up and the seller said they 140 years old, which would make them post 1870 - but I just don't think that is right - as several of the razors in this group are almost what I would call full hollow? After passing it by a couple of razor cognoscenti, I have to question the assessment of the time - because it is the general consensus that full hollow didn't come into its own until much later, probably 20th century thing?

The scales run the gamut from mostly celluloid to ivory to a substance labeled "Xylo", anyone know what this stuff might be? It looks like ivory, has a grain, but is a little darker. I am starting to think that maybe these are from the early 1900's, the etching on them is old school and the fonts bely a time period form before WW2 I think. These are all Sheffield too, J. Rodgers.

So, full hollow when, and Xylo what - anyone?

K

OK, I answered some of my own questions, and raised some more - the "Xylo" that was referred to must have been "Xylonite" which was a sort of plastic - and was a precursor to Celluloid, and looked like ivory!

However, the Xylonite was invented prior to celluloid, so the other scales in my set are probably Vulcanite, which was a rubber and sulfur mixture invented in the first half of the 1800's - and it only came in black, no colors could be added to this stuff - and that explains why when I sanded these black scales it gave off an ungodly stench, the sulfur in the compound! Celluloid on the other hand was invented I believe in 1879, and could have color added to it, and was initially transparent, giving the maker a wider range of possible colors and range of shaping options. Celluloid was as I read originally developed as a replacement for ivory for the making of billiard balls (which was getting rather expensive apparently), but had a nasty property of exploding on contact given its rather volatile nature.

Here is a cool link for the history of the company, and the father of modern plastics Mr. Parkes the inventor of Parkesine is mentioned, the precursor to Xylonite; http://www.mernick.co.uk/zylonite/history.htm

http://www.thecarrotbox.com/plastic/parkesine_xylonite.asp

And check out the straight razor mentioned in this bit, isn't that a Taylor Sheffield?

http://www.plastiquarian.com/parkesine.htm

So, given this research, and the fact that I have apparently vulcanite and no celluloid in the bunch, along with xylonite and ivory scales - they might actually be that old - but what about the blade hollow?

Funky what you can find -

K

I think I can answer that question very convincingly.

I have 2 razors forged by John Barber.
JB made sheffield razors from 1810 until 1836. They are both full hollow ground.
Ergo, hollow ground razors existed in the beginning of the 1800s.

Both those razors have black scales of some kind of plasticky stuff that does give off a smell when sanding.

OK, well that puts a kink into the wedges only prior to 1900 - and Bruno, if you look at the history, celluloid wasn't invented until at least the second half of the 1800s, so what you have to have there is vulcanite, not celluloid - that is why alot (most) of the early razors we see are either black scaled, wood, or ivory. The black was the only color that stuff came in, except for surface painting, which probably flaked off very quickly. It was only with the advent of celluloid much later that dies could be added to the handles, including mock tortoise, as celluloid was pretty much transparent (and hence why they made film out of it in the 1900's) -

So what I have been thinking was celluloid forever is really something completely different - and does not suffer the volatile nature or degradation concerns of celluloid, as these razors I have have been stored together since made, and neither the blades nor the scales have any problems, short of discoloration.

Interesting. Knowing this, maybe there is a chemical that will dissolve, shine, revive old vulcanite scales - I am on the hunt-

Thanks for the reply-

K