Thread: SPURB? EYAM? What did I even buy?

I liked the look of the SPURB blade and it has what seems to be tortoise scales so I had my coworker pick up these for me in Sweden. They seem pretty old? Maybe the village of Eyam in England? But that's about as far as I get. So many questions:

• are there clues that could narrow these down to a country or approximate timeframe?
• are they worn and the heels were modified as I suspect or are they relatively unused and this is close to what shape they were intended to be?
• the EYAM has a weirdly thin tang, what's up with that? it broke off and the smith rescued it by smushing what was left?
• do I treat tortoise roughly like horn, sand it down and wipe on some neatsfoot?

No idea what you have there but the one on the bottom looks pretty interesting

Those are nice.

Yes, a little neetsfoot. I would not do much to them, myself.

Dam' they weird !
But me likey

I'll talk about them separately

The EYAM
- are there clues that could narrow these down to a country or approximate timeframe?
The clues I see point in all kind of directions, that's the issue. On one had, you have a stub tail, crude work on the blade and the scales, which could make me think of a product from an early 1800 small forge. The stamp, too, looks early 1800s
But then, you have this hollow grind which contradicts the above entirely.

Which could mean a lot of different things. Could be a reground, re-worked very old razor.
Which in turn could explain your feelings about the heel.

The SPURB
I'm pretty sure this one is early 1800, say around 1820, probably English.
I'd say faux tortoise, though, so yes, treat it like horn, it probably is

I'm with Aggelos, they've been reworked to some point.

Nice find, though.!