Thread: My kind of Christmas presents!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it and wishes of the season even to those who don't. My lovely bride gave me these 2 gems for Christmas. Westby & Son is one I can't find any information on. I assume that is buffalo horn but I'm not sure. I guess it could be ebony. Only really seen ebony on guitar fretboards so I don't know. The Najeeb Maluk sounds Paki but I've read he was an impirter from Turkey. Nice engraving and scales. These are celluloid I'm pretty sure.



As always any information or opinions are welcome but mainly sharing. Merry Christmas!!

Although I did find this which was the only thing I could find on any Cutler named Westby at all associated with Leicester. It's from the Midland Counties' Railway Companion, September 1 1840

Nice gifts from a nice gal. Congrats!

Being ever curious I did some more digging. Re-wording my search I found this advertisement also.



This is from Spencer's Illustrated Leicester Almanack, Diary, Peerage, Baronetage, Directory, and General Advertiser from 1898. It appears that this could be, perhaps, not only the Westby & Son that I am searching for but also, perhaps, the "son" is the grandson of the aforementioned Thomas Westby in the advertisement 54 years earlier in 1840.
Any thoughts????

Very nice gift indeed. You are very lucky.

You know how things suddenly occur to you that didn't for a long time? On the Westby it suddenly dawned on me that the box says Westby and Son but the razor does not. It says Westby Leicester. I guess the power of suggestion had me of the mind that they matched. It's possible that the razor may be much older than I thought and possibly made by the aforementioned Thomas Westby and not by J. Westby and Son. Ashamed to say that one slithered right by me.

Update on the Westby and a warning:
So, as previously described I cracked a piece off of one of the scales on the westby which is how I discovered it was buffalo horn. I glued it back on with some epoxy and sanded it smooth but you can still see the crack plus one side is a little thinner... yada yada yada...so I decided to put some new buffalo horn scales on it...delete needless details, delete needless details... So in the process I took apart the scales and discovered that the wedge is made of lead.

Yep. Lead. No question about it, not even the slightest uncertainty, lead.
Now, this is maybe not a grave danger but it's best to limit exposure to lead as much as possible especially when it's contacting your face with something that could cut it. It never even occurred to me that manufacturers may have used lead for scales but It's not a surprise given history. Just thought I should put that out there for community awareness.