Thread: Wester Bros De-FI age?

Interesting. I don't know that the information below will be of any real help to you, but it, at a minimum, it will give you some information that suggests your razor may have been made before 1920.

I have a razor that looks almost identical to the one in the picture you provided. This razor belonged to my grandfather who died in 1918 and is buried in Macon, GA.

Here are some facts about my razor:

1. Box:

When I found the razor about a year ago in a cigar box that belonged to my father, it was in a Wester Bros. box wrapped in thin, badly worn, yellowish tissue paper. The box is dark cordovan in color (although faded and badly worn). The words "Wester Bros" in silver is on the top of the box. To the right of "Wester Bros" is a an anchor with a sort of star on the shank and an arrow though the star with the arrowhead pointing left.

Underneath the brand name are letters, also in silver, "New - York". I thought the hypen was interesting. On the top of the removable top of the box are the letters "De -- Fi" and under these letters are the letters "Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. "

2. Blade:

I make the width of the blade to be 4/8 or about half an inch. The length of the cutting portion of the blade is about 2 1/2 inches.

3. Tang:

Here is where things are different from your razor. On one side of the tang the words, "Royal Blue" are written in a fairly large script typeface.

On the other side of the tang are the words "Matthews & Lively" with the words underneath "Atlanta, GA." And underneath these words, in a smaller typesize, are the words "Made in Germany".

My copy of "Standard Guide to Razors - Identification and Values" (9/1998) by Roy Ritchie and Ron Stewart shows that "Matthews and Lively" went out of business (at the least the business of selling straight razors) in 1920. Sadly, my copy of this useful book is packed, because I am in the process of moving, so I cannot confirm my memory of the date M&L went out of business shown in this book.

I think it is likely that Matthews & Lively operated in at least the Atlanta, GA, area. Now, my grandfather was a railroad man. He probably bought this razor in Macon or Atlanta or perhaps somewhere else in the southeast area of the United States where his travels with the railroad may have taken him.

So what's a Matthews & Lively razor doing in a Wester Bros. box with "De -- FI" on the removable top?

I suspect that Matthew & Lively bought straight razors from Wester Bros., who, as noted in an excellent post to this thread, acquired their razors from Wester and Butz in Soligen, Germany. Wester Bros. sold them to other dealers in the US, who, in turn sold them to the general public retail under their "house brand" -- "Royal Blue" in the case of M&L, And M&L presumably used the Wester Bros. box that the razors shipped in.

Now I can't prove this hypothesis, because my grandfather may have owned a Wester Bros. razor and this M&L razor just ended up in the box his Wester Bros. razor came in.

One last note: To the left of the words "De -- Fi" on the removable box top and oriented at 90 degrees to the letters, is the number, in silver, "34".

The point of my post, Finally!, I am sure you are saying, is that your razor could be older than 1920. Of course, it is entirely possible that Wester Bros. sold the very same razor under their own brand name before and after Matthews & Lively went of business.

After some honing and stropping, this razor is in my "stable" of five straight razors that I use to shave with regularly. It is a good, but not great, "shaver". I think that is more likely attributable to my lack of honing and stropping skills than to the inherent quality of this razor.

Welcome to the wonderful world of vintage straight razors and the task of trying to identify their provenance!

I've seen those same scales used on several other brands of razors; they were not proprietary to Wester Bros. I have a small wedge made by the Duluth Cutlery Company with those black and brown scales. It's cool that common scales could also be used to date a razor.

Chris L

Originally Posted by nelsonkent

some information that suggests your razor may have been made before 1920.

As I wrote, Wester Brothers used trademark "De-Fi" since 1909. But according my experience, such handles were used approximately after 1920.