Thread: Friedr. Herder Abr. Sohn No#

Hello everybody,
inherited what appears to be a Friedr. Herder Abr. Sohn razor from an uncle. I do not have any experience with razors and have not made any attempts of cleaning the tool yet.
Have been reading up on some other threads regarding the manufacturer, which was very interesting. In most reading have done, I have seen a # on the razor. Neither side of the blade however has any specific # or stamps. What does that mean? From the pictures attached, can anybody help me to figure out the year the razor was manufactured?
Any help is appreciated!
-Chrisl1


Case


Closed


Front


Side - neither side of the blade has any # or stamp

Were it a Herder, it would have tang stamp(s), FME.
Most old razors are not in the original boxes as I have found them.

This looks like a standard German or U.S. 5/8" razor, not much hone wear and perfectly good to shave with. If you're interested in straight razor shaving it would be a fine razor to start with, but it will need to be honed first by an expert.

These razors were made by the millions and the blanks could be etched or stamped with the name of a store, a cutler, a barber shop, etc. Many of them were never marked and were sold for $2 or $2.50 (in the early 1900s so think 10X today).

It's every bit as good as a modern German straight razor, but worth very little at an antique store or maybe less on eBay.

BTW it is ground like a Herder #78; no way to know if it was made by them for export. I have a Dame & Stoddard razor that was in a case marked with both Dame & Stoddard and Henckels, but no indication on the blade of the twins. (They were on the case.). The tang was marked only with Dame & Stoddard Boston, and made in Germany on the other side. But it is otherwise identical to a Henckels razor I have. Super shaver BTW, nice big 13/16" blade.

Originally Posted by jmabuse

BTW it is ground like a Herder #78; no way to know if it was made by them for export.

Show us a Herder 78...I would like to see one!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Show us a Herder 78...I would like to see one!

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...e-age-etc.html

Well-done! Crosskeys on the back. Proper stamp on the front.

So the OP's razor...


And yours....


Could be, I don't think?

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Could be, I don't think?

Hard to tell from the pictures because of the different angles but I think you're right, the tail on the OP's razor looks a little stubbier and so do the scales. But probably still a perfectly good razor!

Thank you so much for the information provided and your thoughts on this piece. No visible tang stamps as stated earlier, so I will settle for a standard German razor.
Out of curiosity (not concerned about value more than possibly historical as this is intriguing and interesting), is it likely that the Friedr. Herder Abr. Sohn box is an "original" and only the razor has been replaced, or are boxes commonly "reproduced" and not legitimately Herder?

I've never heard of a fake razor box. There are lots of original razor boxes out there for sale. I think that if one were faked, it would be recently for an extremely rare and expensive collectible. Herders are well-respected and they made some very cool big blades but they're not the rarest and most sought-after brand, and the value of a fake box would never pay for the time and effort it would take to make one.

Note that your no-name razor could well have been made by Herder; there were a lot of variations in Solingen razors and the big makers exported them in huge quantities and they were marked with all sorts of brands. Or sometimes not marked at all. It just seems a little different in minor ways from the closest Herder model; but over the lifetime of a model you often had such variations.