Thread: I'll show you mine.... Show me yours

This should have been the SOD post, but it got me thinking. This Wade and Butcher in horn is about 150 years old and shaves maybe better than the day it was finished. I'll bet our hones are that much better. That said, this is a perfect edge. I don't sand the old blades to perfection I just clean them up (flitz and dremel) and make them look pretty good, sharpen them and put them in the drawer with the other four vintage W&B blades and other assorted blades

How many 150+ year old blades are still out there. If you have some mid 1800's blades or older, let's see them!

BJ Erie


DC Halsted (Rescaled)


Frederick Fenney


G. Johnson


John S. Holler


Joseph Rodgers & Sons


Medaille Rover CE


Wade and Butcher (Rescaled)


William and John Birks


William Ryals

150 years old isn’t that old for a straight razor, so that might be the reason for a less than huge response - 150 year old razors are most of many people’s collections. Here’s a couple of French pairs, made between 1850 and 1860.

Magnificent! Thanks for sharing them with us.

I want them. Beautiful blades.

Sure, I'll play. How about another W&B that is at least that age.



Or 2


Or 3


This one I know was made between 1853 & 1856


And this one is circa 1820

Gosh, I've never seen a Touron that I would not immediately desire.
They are among the finest razors ever made.

Anyway, way to poke a bear...
150 y/o razors are still very, very abundant on flea markets, antique sellers and diverse auction sites. To the point that, mainly, I don't look at them anymore.
One in 50 is about 200 years old, that's the point where I may be ticking

That being said, if you know your thing, you can find old and crappy razors.
There's a whole category that I call the "French uggos". They are 200 years old razors which are weird, gimmicky, and crap. I love them
Butterfly razors are, for the most, a sub-class of this category.

Here is a family picture of some of my uggos


The leftmost butterfly I still have to restore to satisfaction. It has in common with the second one this groove in the scales.
Now I am pretty sure that they used red wax (there were residudes) to glue some cheap decoration and create the appareance of "high end" razors.
But the blades are pretty thin, their geometry completely wrong.



You will not that often time, they did not know how to make a spacer. Here what you have are scales made by sawing the bone in the middle. Sometimes there's no spacer, only a rivet


Looks nice though. But oh boy, it's crap lol.

The butterfly on the right I gave to a curious friend. Told him that even if he could hone it to satisfaction, he would shave once perfectly, and then it would become quite blunt. And that's exactly what happened. Most of these butterfly cannot retain their edge for long.

The third razor... Well, it's something else.
It came from a previous collection, whose owner was a H. VILLARD as engraved on the scales, and was blade V of a rotation. I got it with two other blades from the same owner, and still regret to this day that I did not get all of them (I knew too little at the time).

As a contrast, the three blades (the ones above) are from the 1820s and are all pretty good (one of them is a Dumas Ainé, a very well established brand)

The Wawick is a beast, the heaviest blade of my collection, reaching 15/16 at the bottom of the smile

200 yr.old razors are much more rare. I think i have 2.

Thanks PaulFLUS for dating one of my older W&B Your 1820's blade. I have a match. Heavy, sharp, and in the drawer.

Bonjour Aggelos, I follow you on Le 3C, but my French is not that good yet!

Touron indeed made some fine razors and I used the second razor in the 5/8 set today. The razors belonged to an Etsy seller’s husband’s family. She originally believed that her father-in-law brought them back in WW2 since they found them in a box of his belongings. Until we began talking about them, she did not realize how old they were and maybe they belonged to her father-in-law’s father, who was a successful lumber mill operator in Massachusetts in the late 1800s. I think the grandfather bought them as these were expensive razors. It isn’t often that we can find the history of razors this old.

The other pair in the dressing case came from Barrington, Rhode Island, so I am beginning to suspect that there was an importer in New England, probably in New York City.

Originally Posted by Aggelos

Gosh, I've never seen a Touron that I would not immediately desire.
They are among the finest razors ever made.

Anyway, way to poke a bear...
150 y/o razors are still very, very abundant on flea markets, antique sellers and diverse auction sites. To the point that, mainly, I don't look at them anymore.
One in 50 is about 200 years old, that's the point where I may be ticking

That being said, if you know your thing, you can find old and crappy razors.
There's a whole category that I call the "French uggos". They are 200 years old razors which are weird, gimmicky, and crap. I love them
Butterfly razors are, for the most, a sub-class of this category.

Here is a family picture of some of my uggos


The leftmost butterfly I still have to restore to satisfaction. It has in common with the second one this groove in the scales.
Now I am pretty sure that they used red wax (there were residudes) to glue some cheap decoration and create the appareance of "high end" razors.
But the blades are pretty thin, their geometry completely wrong.



You will not that often time, they did not know how to make a spacer. Here what you have are scales made by sawing the bone in the middle. Sometimes there's no spacer, only a rivet


Looks nice though. But oh boy, it's crap lol.

The butterfly on the right I gave to a curious friend. Told him that even if he could hone it to satisfaction, he would shave once perfectly, and then it would become quite blunt. And that's exactly what happened. Most of these butterfly cannot retain their edge for long.

The third razor... Well, it's something else.
It came from a previous collection, whose owner was a H. VILLARD as engraved on the scales, and was blade V of a rotation. I got it with two other blades from the same owner, and still regret to this day that I did not get all of them (I knew too little at the time).

As a contrast, the three blades (the ones above) are from the 1820s and are all pretty good (one of them is a Dumas Ainé, a very well established brand)

The Wawick is a beast, the heaviest blade of my collection, reaching 15/16 at the bottom of the smile