Thread: Wade & Butcher Comeback

So long as it's being done by someone who cares and understands the value of that mark I'm hopeful. Besides, even if a suit were running it, all it would take is a modicum of research to see how utterly rejected a shambolic, cookie cutter operation of 5/8 or 6/8 hollow ground round points would be... Not that there is anything wrong with a vanilla blade, but that's not what you buy into with almost any sheffield maker.

Not all of them are ground sloppy or warped. I have encountered a fair number of Rodgers and Wostenholms that were really neat even after being honed by who knows how many different hands

Originally Posted by kcb5150

So long as it's being done by someone who cares and understands the value of that mark I'm hopeful. Besides, even if a suit were running it, all it would take is a modicum of research to see how utterly rejected a shambolic, cookie cutter operation of 5/8 or 6/8 hollow ground round points would be... Not that there is anything wrong with a vanilla blade, but that's not what you buy into with almost any sheffield maker.

To be fair, the cookie-cutter high throughput industrial operation was already done under the Wade & Butcher name.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...tml#post458787

It didn't take either, it went to the same heap the other proprietary blade de went.... Actually, to be fair, the wade and butcher de was a clever piece. The blade was thick and rigid in a pre-curved curved format. I used to have one but no idea where it is. The Segal razor is the only de that takes a weird blade I can think of that survived awhile but their day job was locks and keys so there was a fall back.

Michael, it's really great to see you engaging with the history of the company.

And thank you Jimmy for posting the link to Tweedale's excellent history of the company.

There's apparently a lot of confusion over what the mark meant, what they did and how they did it. Here are a few important facts about the company and the mark which might help people. And Michael, if the owner has more of the story than this, I would love to know! I've been chasing this story for years now, and sources are thin on the ground!

Wade & Butcher was founded in 1815 by Robert Wade -- a businessman -- and William & Samuel Butcher, orphans who'd been apprenticed in the cutlery trade. Beyond that, little is known.

Razors was only one of many products they made, and in fact the main line of business for the Butcher brothers was steel refining -- which was largely done from Swedish ore, imported from Dannemora mine.

In 1825 Robert Wade died and his wife Jane took over his business concerns, which included manufacturing razors with only his name on them. Jane died in 1829 leaving two children (Robert and Jane Elizabeth) and the business.

The company of Wade & Butcher ended with the death of Robert Wade.

The <b>brand</b>however, had become sufficiently valuable that the Butcher brothers continued to use it. In fact, sufficiently valuable that Michael is bringing it back for razors! But the company ceased in 1825 and was completely rolled up in 1829.

Now it's important to understand some features of the old Sheffield production system.

Goods were made by small teams of men lead by a skilled worker called a Little Master. Because of the way the system worked (workers paid rent to their employers for tools, lighting, materials, etc -- and were sometimes paid partly or entirely in goods and not money), Little Masters and their crews were employed by several firms simultaneously.

They got work orders from their employers and they made they goods requested. Because there were a limited number of workshops and Little Masters, what this meant is that goods for one firm were quite regularly made in the workshops and with the materials of a completely separate firm. There were a few patented designs (Bennington Gill's frameback, purchased by Rhodes & Champion -- the Ragg's Plantagenet razor), but the vast majority of blade patterns were shared between companies, largely because they were the work of individual Little Masters or their grinders.

What individual companies owned were marks struck on the blades. IXL, Joseph Elliot's reversed C, cross, forward C, Barber's compass & angle, Shepherd's crown over WOLF -- those were the actual exclusive items. While there were some attempts to own slogans (John Barber quickly lost control of 'Old English' to everyone and their dog), those were open season. The same went for fancy blade etches. Since the work was often done by the same workmen for diferent companies, they just reused whatever they were tooled up for and struck the buyer's mark. (This went well beyond goods being made in factories of rival firms -- goods were often made and marked for foreign markets with no indication they'd been produced in Sheffield. Foreign, in this case means as close as London or as far away as New York.) There was no point in policing whose goods were made where because the workers paid rent on the workshop and materials, so the company got paid either way.

Back to Wade & Butcher.

In the early 1850's, Robert Wade's son Robert went to work for the Butcher brothers and moved to Philadelphia, where he acted as agent for the company. America is where the bulk of their business came from, and most of the other Sheffield firms had men on the ground out in the wild west. The Butcher brothers did the bulk of ther sales with salesmen, rather than advertising. At their peak, they were a large company but by no means the largest. That was George Wostenholm.

So there you have it. That middle section is really the most important for understanding what you're buying when you buy an antique Wade & Butcher (or any other old Sheffield razor for that matter). It's also worth noting that the (B)arrow(cross) mark was a late addition to the company's marks. As near as I can tell, it wasn't used until the late 1860's.

I'm going to try an analogy here and see what people think. Not so many years ago there was a British car marque - Rover - that went bust. Up until the last few models it was classed as a premium make so the name itself held some value and ended up in China along with some plant, tooling and equipment.

If the Chinese owners of the marque were to introduce a modern vehicle, assembled in the PRC but badged as Rover, does that car have any link to the vehicles built in Britain? There may be a partial link in that some machine tools may still be turning out parts - but that's about it for me. The link has been broken because the company stopped trading and no-one involved in the original enterprise is involved.

So, here's how I see the W&B current proposal - as a company W&B has not operated or traded for many years. The plan to make custom blades, albeit with a W&B influence, in South Africa using Swedish Steel, is no more to do with Wade & Butcher than if you ask one of the USA craftsmen to make the same blade. The connection was lost when the company stopped trading, I can't see that stamping the name on a blade brings that connection back.

I hope no-one sees this as criticism of Michael's plans - it's certainly not meant that way.

Originally Posted by UKRob

I'm going to try an analogy here and see what people think. Not so many years ago there was a British car marque - Rover - that went bust. Up until the last few models it was classed as a premium make so the name itself held some value and ended up in China along with some plant, tooling and equipment.

If the Chinese owners of the marque were to introduce a modern vehicle, assembled in the PRC but badged as Rover, does that car have any link to the vehicles built in Britain? There may be a partial link in that some machine tools may still be turning out parts - but that's about it for me. The link has been broken because the company stopped trading and no-one involved in the original enterprise is involved.

So, here's how I see the W&B current proposal - as a company W&B has not operated or traded for many years. The plan to make custom blades, albeit with a W&B influence, in South Africa using Swedish Steel, is no more to do with Wade & Butcher than if you ask one of the USA craftsmen to make the same blade. The connection was lost when the company stopped trading, I can't see that stamping the name on a blade brings that connection back.

I hope no-one sees this as criticism of Michael's plans - it's certainly not meant that way.

I was going to keep out of this, buuuuuut good sense was never my strong suit...

This post is exactly the way I look at this venture... Not to take anything away from the new venture or principals.. The auto dealers say there is a butt for every seat, just that it is not mine...

There is a sadness and desperation to all this. Try going back to the home of your childhood that you haven't been to in 40 years...jokes on you, that place doesn't exist anywhere other than in your mind.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, and unlike Jimmy have been wrong many times, but weren't a lot of razors, including at least some W&Bs, made from Swedish steel?

Originally Posted by UKRob

I'm going to try an analogy here and see what people think. Not so many years ago there was a British car marque - Rover - that went bust. Up until the last few models it was classed as a premium make so the name itself held some value and ended up in China along with some plant, tooling and equipment.

If the Chinese owners of the marque were to introduce a modern vehicle, assembled in the PRC but badged as Rover, does that car have any link to the vehicles built in Britain? There may be a partial link in that some machine tools may still be turning out parts - but that's about it for me. The link has been broken because the company stopped trading and no-one involved in the original enterprise is involved.

So, here's how I see the W&B current proposal - as a company W&B has not operated or traded for many years. The plan to make custom blades, albeit with a W&B influence, in South Africa using Swedish Steel, is no more to do with Wade & Butcher than if you ask one of the USA craftsmen to make the same blade. The connection was lost when the company stopped trading, I can't see that stamping the name on a blade brings that connection back.

I hope no-one sees this as criticism of Michael's plans - it's certainly not meant that way.

A fair point...to stick with automotive analogy I'll flip this one around to make a counter-point (and as a disclaimer, this is not meant in any way to start an arguement...just looking at your fair point from a different angle)..

Before WWII a company named Willys Overland created and marketed what would become the Jeep to the US Government based on a series of requirements issued for the war. Lots of companies submitted designs in the short time period allotted, and Willys won. When the contract was awarded, however, Willys only made a very small number of those vehicles and the design was licensed to lots of producers...on of whom eventually became known as Jeep (AM General) some time later. Fast forward again several decades later and the brand has been passed along, and while omnipresent in some form (unlike W&B which to be fair has not had a product in quite some time) the brand has changed hands numerous times. Production methods changed, designs were modernized. Chrysler bought the brand, Daimler bought Chrysler, and then spun it off again. All the while, the Jeep remained in spirit and design cues harkened back to the original Willys Overland in the form of an iconic grille design. Modern Jeeps are no more related to the original Willys than a custom, W&B stamped, new production razor would be related to an original FBU...but people will likely be drawn to them none the less.

Long story short, the new W&B could be similar in a lot of ways...many things have changed, but the opportunity to revive and maintain the iconic design, even if modernized a bit, is still a marketable and noble opportunity. I don't feel it cheapens the brand in the least...it just means it is evolving.