Thread: today's finds

Found two nice razors today. It was my girlfriend's birthday - headed out early for a sunrise hot-air balloon ride out in Snohomish. Spent 90 minutes in the air up to 3,000', did a nice box and landed less than a mile from takeoff.
Headed into downtown for some antiquing. First find is a nice damascus wedge in a crown antler handle by FE Edwards out of Jacksonville, Alabama. $30 - Haven't found any refernces on him yet---

Second one I almost missed but my girlfriend spotted it - a genuine Depew monkey tail, patent date and all. $10

Both need some professional cleaning up. Suggestions are welcome...

Wow...I don't know anything about those razors, but they look awesome. The bottom one almost looks like damascus...

Nice score!

Interesting that on a DePew Perfect razor the is no any signs on a blade.. And BTW congratulations. I hate you

The antler-handled razor is damascus, just needs to be cleaned up.


The Depew says "DE PEWS" PATENT JUNE 6, 1884 on the front of the tang.

Compliment accepted...

Originally Posted by schmoozer

The Depew says "DE PEWS" PATENT JUNE 6, 1884 on the front of the tang.

This is not the sign I am talking about. Look at the blade. I bought this razor like 4 month ago.

Originally Posted by Traskrom

This is not the sign I am talking about. Look at the blade. I bought this razor like 4 month ago.

Blade etch....got it! Now, if I found something like that for $10, I could understand you having issues with me. Beautiful razor!!!!

I loved my DePews. It was the largest I've ever seen & very usable. It's usually stamped on the monkey tail too.
Traskrom, that must've seen a rescale, but very nice.
Schmoozer, if you decide to offload the DePews, as is, pm me!

I did find out that Fain Edwards was a member of the Knifemakers Guild in 1981 and is now listed as an Emeritus...living in North Carolina.
It seems he was more of a knifemaker than razormaker, and he supplied a number of well-known makers with damascus steel stock.

There is a knife made by him on eBay with the same stamping...http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Very nice score!! Antique shop finds are GREAT! We hit a couple of flea markets yesterday and made some good scores. I'll post in the show and tell section later this week.

To clean them I would use a single edge razor to scrape the runs and raised gunk off. Get the rust removed out of the way so it doesn't scratch the blade. Finish with metal polish like Maas using tooth picks to rub on stuff the razor didn't remove and a cotton swab to get the rest. Use an old t-shirt scrap to remove the metal polish and finish cleaning. If you use sand paper it will be an investment in a lot of time to remove the metal and then the scratches. I don't bother. Some patina looks good. Other options would be power tools but that can get dangerous.

Good luck!