Estate Straight Razor Collection! Ivory??, W&B's, Choppers, Hollows, Big Stubtail

I mentioned in another thread I was helping a gentleman sort out a collection of razors he purchased. I didn't think about snapping pics until right before he had to go so these are all I have right now. Pics at bottom are ones he took.
One razor looked like it could POSSIBLY be ivory, but I haven't gotten to spend much time looking at it yet (there were a lot of razors). It is a pattern I've seen before, but it was really clean looking for bone and hard for synthetic. It is below a Engels in a pic with just two razors. Joseph (Elliot?)
Had a Dubl Duck and Filarmonica, but unfortunately they both had huge frowns. Fine India Steel chopper in there. Boker with a notch but I didn't get a good pic of the blade. Lot of interesting blades!


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Here is the ones I'm trying to salvage.:p

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Any full hollows with that much rust are totally toast, however wedge and to about half hollow can take a bit of sanding. Wedges usually have a lot of volume of metal so the will tolerate a lot of metal removal. Of course it is at the edge where it counts so pay attention to how well you can get a clean bevel before you put a bunch of time into them.

Looks like some serious celluloid rot in those last photos. He should quarantine those from the healthy ones. That gassing may affect the neighbors.

Don't let a frown scare you off. Frowns can be turned upside down :) that's quite a few nice scores there. Thanks for sharing the photos.

What a bountiful score, and even a couple of old stub tails in there! Well done.

I wish these were mine Firefighter. It is a nice collection.


Rezdog, I appreciate the advice. I know you have a lot more experience with this sort of thing. I'm not going to try and save them all, but several of them of them have rust that stops before you get to the edge. Almost all of them will never be pretty, but there are few that seem to have clean edges.
The junk ones will at least be good practice for repinning and straightening scales.

Ejmolitor37, I'll give them a second look but the ones I remember had a deep frown to that went well above the heel.

I thought there might be cell rot here, but I've never encountered it before so I wasn't sure exactly what to look for. All of these were in the same case on top of other cases so I wasn't sure it if it was cell rot or moisture got trapped in it. I'll have to do do a search on how to find the rotting one if that is the case. One of the sets of yellow scales has a brown area on one side so that may be the culprit.


There was a some nice looking Engels and Black Diamond in the collection (among others) so I may try to buy some of those.

I looked back at those pictures. It looks like most are rusted from the outside, the blade that is inside the scales is in better condition. If there are a few that the blade is crumbling to the edge, those ones are the likely cuplprits from the cell rot that Jimmy mentioned. Do not leave those scales around other razors. They will be what caused the rot to erupt in that case.

Gonna try and meet him again today to look at the razors. He's nice enough to give me first pick so I'm going to try and buy a few without going too crazy.
The other cases look a lot better, but I'm going to recommend he keep the other celluloid scaled razors separate from the others so they don't get ruined if he puts them up for a long period of time and they start gassing off.

Also, a few questions.

Did W&B ever use wood scales? That is the first time I've seen them. First picture in the middle.

Are the Engels scales with bolsters celluloid or something else?

Anyone else think that Joseph might be ivory or were they never done in that style?

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Originally Posted by JP5

Also, a few questions.

Did W&B ever use wood scales? That is the first time I've seen them. First picture in the middle.

Are the Engels scales with bolsters celluloid or something else?

Anyone else think that Joseph might be ivory or were they never done in that style?

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Not sure if wood was used for wade and butcher but I don't know everything. I'm assuming it was rescaled.
Looks as though the bolstered one is celluloid and the other one looks like bone to me. Bone can be very polished and smooth. Ivory has a grain appearance to it. I believe the term is Shreger lines. Just learned that awhile back so my spelling or term might be wrong. Lots of great purchases to be made, very nice of him to offer you first pick. Have fun, I'm a bit jealous: )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JP5

Also, a few questions.

Did W&B ever use wood scales? That is the first time I've seen them. First picture in the middle.

Are the Engels scales with bolsters celluloid or something else?

Anyone else think that Joseph might be ivory or were they never done in that style?

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Wood scales on old Sheffield razors are exceptionally rare, and I think the only ones I've seen that are plausibly original are scaled in either ebony or rosewood.

Those scales do look plausibly original, but I'm not sure they're wood. Old horn can look a lot like wood if it's been badly abused. A closer picture would help.

Nice lot. I like really rusty blades... What can you do with ones in great condition, restoration wise.

When ever I see a whole bunch of blades like that I think of the past owner ,probably gone from this world and how he must have acquired each blade feeding his RAD.

As we are all collectors suffering from the incurable RAD disease :)

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Originally Posted by JOB15

Nice lot. I like really rusty blades... What can you do with ones in great condition, restoration wise.

When ever I see a whole bunch of blades like that I think of the past owner ,probably gone from this world and how he must have acquired each blade feeding his RAD.

As we are all collectors suffering from the incurable RAD disease :)

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You would LOVE these. If you have any that are too shiny for your taste we could do some trading!:angel:

If you are referring to the razor that is in the two Razor picture that appears to look like carved bone scales, I think those are plastic of some kind and neither bone or ivory.

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Originally Posted by RezDog

If you are referring to the razor that is in the two Razor picture that appears to look like carved bone scales, I think those are plastic of some kind and neither bone or ivory.

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Gaaah! :D

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Originally Posted by RezDog

If you are referring to the razor that is in the two Razor picture that appears to look like carved bone scales, I think those are plastic of some kind and neither bone or ivory.

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Probably. Like I said before, I only looked at them for a second. I probably just saw the pretty with scales and got ahead if myself. I wonder what kind of plastic (Bakelite?) It would be because it seemed pretty hard on the surface.

Nice looking Union Spike hiding out in that photo!