Thread: F. Herder #3

Hi All, I’m new on the forum and wanted to consult the knowledge here if possible.

I’ve picked up a F. Herder #3 (without Abr. sohn) with Google I cannot pick up any leads for this model. Can you please help me to date this model and maybe with some background information. Many thanks in advance!

Daan

The foto’s

It isn’t really easy to put your model of the Herder razor in the correct time frame. Herder is one of the oldest Solingen companies in the cutlery trade and goes back to the time of the thirty years war. In the year 1623 a certain Jürgen Herder was mentioned as a producer/ hardener of swords.
The first trade mark, the „Pikas“ - ace of spades, was registered 1727 from Peter Herder. After his death 1762 his sons Abraham and Johann Peter took over the company, followed by the son of Abraham and so on……
During that time the company was named Joh. Abr. Herder & Sne (Johann Abraham Herder & Söhne).
1839 Friedrich Herder joined the company. From 1841 the company was named Friedrich Herder Abr. Sohn until today.
I don’t know if the company was named Friedrich Herder without „Abr. Sohn“ at any time. But the signature „F. Herder“ was registered as a trademark itself.
The crossed keys trademark is first mentioned 1848:



Later on the crossed keys symbol was used together with the company name „F.Herder A.S.“ or solely on the back side of the tang, having the company name „Friedr. Herder Abr.Sohn“ on the other side (together sometimes with the ace of spades symbol and the terms Solingen and Germany)
So I think your razor is marked with a combination of two trademarks from Herder, the „F. Herder“ and the symbol „crossed keys“. I have not found the combination of this two as a single registered trademark.
Given the information that the crossed keys trademark was registered earliest 1848 your razor must be made afterwards. In 1859 Herder build up a new fabrication site at the Grünewalder Straße in Solingen. Some examples of catalogue sites from the late 19th century/early 20th century do all show „Friedr. Herder Abr.Sohn“ on the tang of the razors.
So my estimation would be that your razor was made somewhat between 1850-1860. But the only way to get a real proven dating would be to find an old – and dated – catalogue, that shows your razor.

Regards Peter

Wow thanks for great reply!

Sadly due to some really deep pits in the metal I had to lose 2mm width of the blade but after that it came out pretty nice.

The pitting around the brand name is to deep to remove without removing the letters so I left it like this. I left some of the deep pits in the blade as I love a bit of patina and don’t wat to remove all the “soul” out of the razor.

After this picture I’ve honed the blade on 600 1000 3000 8000 synthetic stone and finished on my coti deluting the slurry slowly. After stropping the edge cam out really well.
Now it’s waiting voor the scale material to arrive.

Ther is an F. Herder abr. sohn # 15 on its way to me for the next project.

Scale material I’m waiting for:

Good work!
Keep us informed about the progress!
Regards Peter

Update Made my first set of scales, and they are fab!
Abalone scales:

Done!

Beautiful scales. The iridescence in the photo is impressive.

I’m curious about the use of screws instead of pins. Please talk about that.

Good work
Most would scale a blade before honing. But with abalone you probably did the smart thing along with the screws.
I have never used abalone but would guess it is far more delicate than horn