Dating and old straight razor

[johnmrson]

There are lots of requests on the forum for people to help give an age to a straight razor. As most of you know, it's actually pretty hard to do as the design hasn't changed much over the years, most manufactures ran for a long period of time and straights don't have any serial numbering system like Gillette DE's.

I thought that I'd share a quick process that I went through to get a date of a razor listed on eBay that I was interesting in buying. The razor was listed as being 1830's and whilst that looked about right, I wanted to see what I could find out.

Here is one of the ebay photos




So we now have a few pieces of information. The maker is Pickslay and Co, they held a Royal Warrant and they the Monarch at the time was WR.

The last two King Williams were William III and William IV. William III reigned from 1689 to 1702. Looking at the razor, that doesn't fit. The shape of the tang is too late for that.
William IV reigned from 1830 to 1837. That fits alot better.

Now the maker. Charles Pickslay and Co were in business from 1832 until 1843. They ran the Royal Yorks works in Sheffield.

So now it's narowed down to being between 1832 and 1837.

Looking through the SRP Wiki, there is a really good diagram on the changes in razor designs.

The straight razor - Straight Razor Place Wiki



The tang on the ebay razor matches the design between 1810 and 1835.

That now dates the eBay razor to somewhere between 1832 and 1835 (give or take).

Being satisfied that it was as old as the seller said it was and being an antique Sheffield blade from a maker I've never heard of before and having scales that my gut tells me are ivory, I decided to spend the $88 inclusive of postage and buy it.