Thread: John Pitts Сelebrated, wedge, Sheffield - pressed handle

Dead horse or not, that is a really nice piece you have there. The scales are really unique.

Still waiting to hear about the cleaning proccess

Originally Posted by Traskrom

This is 3 years old thread.. That horse is dead already..

But you're the one who attempted the resurrection with post #16.

Yes, you right. I did. And talked about handles.

hello, I actually just picked up the same razor, and mine is a wedge. Mine also has a barber notch. Unfortunately the one I got did not come with such nice scales! It has home made wood ones lol.

Originally Posted by manah

You're right.
The razor isn't so old, John Pitts 1850-1875.
I've read about such scales at that period, Robert A.Doyle wrote about them.

John Pitts died in 1859. See here. His son Charles was trading under his own name at the time. When John Pitts senior died, his sons Charles and John formed Pitts Bros.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

(on the question of a regrind) A couple things are pointers. With a blade this old, look at the condition of the blade face. For a razor to have so much pitting and wear on the tang and to be rescaled at some point, it is not consistent with what would be a factory finish on the blade. Also on the tang you can see there is a lot of pitting but the tang still looks ground and shiny. This was apparently somewhat common, to regrind the back areas as well as the blade itself. Also the line between the angles on the tang is pretty rounded. This almost always happens with soft wheel buffing that is done today, but can happen with grinding that does not perfectly set those angles as well. Original pieces would have a crisp line there. Finally, from your second hi resolution picture, it looks like there are two sets of hone wear. This would be consistent with original hone wear and hone wear after a new angle was set by regrinding.

An old thread, but worth pointing a few glaring inconsistencies out.

Firstly the photos show tang pitting/tarnish commensurate with the pitting/tarnish on the blade. So no pointer here.

Secondly the tangs on old razors were finished in a different way to the blades - it was not uncommon for a thick leather faced wooden wheel to polish the tang, softening the line there. It is to be found on an awful lot of razors. Some places employed women and children to give the final polish to tangs using a compound and a soft bit of stick - this is another way the angle at the tang becomes softened.

Thirdly the tang is often at a different temper to the blade - softer - so it wears more when being buffed giving a more rounded effect than the blade.

Fourth, the blade was often finished different to the tang (see above) inasmuch as if the blade was not mirrored less work would have gone into the buffing stage, leaving more of the lines from the sandstone grinding wheel - this gives a sharper delineation, obviously.

Fifth, the hone wear along the shoulder of the spine covers the angle left by the wheel, whether it be sandstone or buff, giving a false impression of sharpness.

Sixth, the commonest reason for a lower line of hone wear is when a small chip has been ground off the bevel - it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with regrinding so cannot be used as a pointer.

For what its worth, I see none of those things as being pointers to a regrind.

Regards,
Neil