Thread: Mutual B.S. Co. straight razor

I ordered a three used SRs yesterday off eBay. No, this is not a "did I get a good deal" question. One is a Geneva razor, which I expect will be quite satisfactory when it arrives and is honed. The other is a C. Congreve's Imppobveld (spelling per the seller) from Naylor and Co. and I expect it will do well also, but I picked it up primarily because I liked the scales and I found the history . The last one is a Mutual B.S. Co. razor. I picked this up because it is a 11/16" and I would like to try out a larger SR. I also paid less than $45 for all three, including shipping (three different vendors). The primary purpose is to practice and improve my honing skills, so if they don't prove to be worth while, I didn't spend much. None of them appear to have any chips or major hone wear, but I will know more when they arrive. So, for the Mutual B.S. Co., I can't find any information about the company online. I usually do pretty well with Internet searches, but this one alludes me. Does anyone have any background information about this company and their razors?

Thanks,

Chris

Mutual BS? Helluva company name.

Originally Posted by Speedster

Mutual BS? Helluva company name.

I initially thought it was a joke, until I saw it stamped into the tang.

Yep, indeed
But according to Wikipedia:
"A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdom and Australia, and used to exist in Ireland and several Commonwealth countries. They are similar to credit unions in organisation, though few enforce a common bond. However, rather than promoting thrift and offering unsecured and business loans, the purpose of a building society is to provide home mortgages to members. Borrowers and depositors are society members, setting policy and appointing directors on a one-member, one-vote basis. Building societies often provide other retail banking services, such as current accounts, credit cards and personal loans. The term "building society" first arose in the 18th century in Great Britain from cooperative savings groups.
In the United Kingdom, building societies actively compete with banks for most consumer banking services, especially mortgage lending and savings accounts, and regulations permit up to half of their lending to be funded by debt to non-members, allowing societies to access wholesale bond and money markets to fund mortgages. The world's largest building society is Britain's Nationwide Building Society. Further, in Australia, building societies also compete with retail banks and offer the full range of banking services to consumers."

I would stake money that the "B.S." stands for "Barber Supply". If you haven't already tried it, searching "Mutual Barber Supply Company" might yield better results than the abbreviated stamp.

Also, I can't quite tell from your picture, but it looks like it might also be stamped "Cleveland, O." If so, there's a good possibility you could find the company in old city directories online. I haven't searched around for Cleveland directories myself, so I don't know if they're readily available on free sites. If you have a membership, ancestry.com has a good sized library of directories.

The razor arrived today. I will have to do some more research on the origin of the razor, but it appears to be in great shape. I will need to take a little tarnish off the ends, but it should hone up fairly nicely.