Thread: Flea market finds. One with ivory?

Originally Posted by ChayesFSS

Strange, I'm reading that as "Gold Bud" not "Gold Bug"?

That is indeed what it says. Either we made an assumption on it being "Bug" due to it looking identical to one, or it's a really rare one, with mis-stamp!

Well spotted.

Or a copycat razor.

Great finds. I like them all.

Great score and great price. I expect all to be great shavers. Aren't flea market finds GREAT!

Thanks guys! The Crown Cutlery razor is indeed stamped "GOLD BUD". I thought it was a Gold Bug when I bought it. Who made the Gold Bug razors, was it Crown, or someone else? The might tell us whether it's a counterfeit, or if one brand was trying to ride on the other's coat tails.

Should I superglue the crack in the Schneider razor, or is there some better fix?

Ben.mid, thanks for the correction. It's no wonder I failed French in high school.

What a nice haul! I looked up Crown Cutlery, and they did own the Gold Bug trademark. They went out of business in 1930. You appear to have an "error" stamp on the tang. Rare! Too bad the error was not on an actual postage stamp; those are worth a lot of money sometimes! The Schneider does have ivory scales. You may want to stabilize the crack to prevent breakage, if you are going to use it. It looks like it could be a good shaver too. The Smith will be a good shaver, and give you lots of exercise restoring it! I have had good luck with every Joseph Smith I have bought. Congratulations.

The one on the right, the Schneider razor, is genuine ivory. The scales will clean nicely with Maaas or Flitz. You can use very thin superglue to glue the ivory but it will always be visible because it has darkened. Many older ivorys caled razors crack like this and the peculiarity is that it's almost always on only one side and only on the wedge pin. After some time I realized that this happens when the razor is jammed into the scales too hard, prying them apart. Something has to give and the side that cracks first at the wedge relieves the pressure, preserving the other side. Any sharp rap or dropping them so they hit spine first, driving the blade into the scales is likely to break them at that pin because the pieces of ivory are wafer thin.

sometimes you will find bone and horn scales cracked in a similar fashion and it's because of the same thing. As a result of this, many people think ivory is very easily cracked, but that's not so. You'll almost always notice that the rest of the scales, including the full opposite scale from the cracked one are quite nice.

Ivory is very sensitive to humidity and will expand and contract depending on atmosphere. If the pins are fixed and do not accommodate this movement, tension on the scale will provide a source for pressure to either warp the scale or to help the crack propagate.

A very thin penetrating superglue will offer some stability to the crack, maybe keep it from getting bigger. But, the best fix will be when this razor is restored. Either as Robert suggests, a liner backing, or drill the pin holes a thousandth larger than the pin diameter so the scales can move around with the weather and there won't be any tension applied between the pins. You can cover any gap with a washer. Or both.

I think on the ivory scales there is no true repair method, but I could be wrong. One thing you can try to do and I wish you luck on this is, is to find vintage replacement ivory scales or find a razor with ivory scales that has a no hope blade attached so you can salvage the scales. But however it may be best to leave the original ivory scales in place and just deal with the crack being there.

I would use it as is. You can't make the crack go away and, frankly, it's not going to get much worse unless you jam the razor in the scales again. It's been like that for decades and that's how it will end up staying without further stress. While ivory does not do all that well when pinned securely to solid materials like a fixed blade knife, with a razor, it's pinned only to itself. The problems with ivory usually come from being pinned to something that doesn't expand and contract the same way the ivory might.

As I noted earlier if you pay attention to ivory scaled razors you will find that in almost every case of cracked scales the following is true.

* It's the wedge end only
* It's only the scales on one side that crack.
* The crack rarely extends more than a few inches from the pin.

And that's because it's not cause by natural shrinkage and contraction, but by the force of the scales being wedged apart by the blade.