Thread: Wester Bros. No. 17 mystery?

I recently purchased a Wester Bros. No. 17 from ebay. I love the razor and do not care if it is a "good buy" or valuable. It will remain a part of my collection for various reasons. The scales are a dark green plastic. The tang one one side has the anchor, star and arrow logo stamped as well as the "No. 17". On the other side is the name "Wester Bros." "M. in Germany" and....most curious of all......what looks to be "Nen York". I know it should say New York, but the stamp looks like "Nen". As far as I can tell there does not seem to be any hone damage or metal removal that would cause this strange new city name to appear.

I am curious about the lack of information I can find on this particular razor. I have found a lot of links and info on Wester Bros. #34 and #16, but nothing on the #17. Does anybody own one of these or seen one? I would love to see your pics.

Hi,
I also have a razor with the same strange city on it. Mine is a little different thought because its white and has little engravings on the side.

You only got that off e-bay because I hadn't seen it.

That's an early Wester Brothers. By 1928 at the latest they had moved to straight clean font on their tang stamp. I have a No 22 which has the same "Nen York" stamp.

Wester Brothers are really good shavers. I have a small collection of some of their less common items (1, 22, 33 and two "Atta Boys").

Well actually my Great Uncle gave it to me, and I'm actually just trying to find out some information about it, and to be more specific about the actuallly is white with a naked women on the side. That would be awsome if you could tell me about it (date, price, etc.)
Thanks!

Originally Posted by yayayo98

Well actually my Great Uncle gave it to me, and I'm actually just trying to find out some information about it, and to be more specific about the actuallly is white with a naked women on the side. That would be awsome if you could tell me about it (date, price, etc.)
Thanks!

We don't do value appraisals here on SRP. Essentially it is, in many cases, a matter of opinion. If by price you mean what the razor cost at the time it was made that is fine if someone has the info. I would think that the odd city stamping is simply a matter of a worn or damaged die stamp. I've seen similar anomalies in pocket knives, revolvers .....etc.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

We don't do value appraisals here on SRP. Essentially it is, in many cases, a matter of opinion. If by price you mean what the razor cost at the time it was made that is fine if someone has the info. I would think that the odd city stamping is simply a matter of a worn or damaged die stamp. I've seen similar anomalies in pocket knives, revolvers .....etc.

Sorry, didn't know you couldnt ask, but still a date would be really cool.
Thanks

Yayayo98,

On the value side, Wester Brothers are not a sought after 'collectible' brand. Dubl Duks and Filarmonicas for example will sell for many multiples of what a Wester Bros razor in similar size and condition will sell for. No one is going to get rich by cornering the market in Wester Brothers razors.

Watch ebay for a month or so and you'll get a reasonable handle on what they sell for.

The handles you've described are Art Nouveau style. Assuming they are original to the razor date it to the 1900-1920 kind of age group.
The font used on the Tang stamp is also of this style which give you two good indicators that the razor is of this era.

The Wiki gives us some basic information about Wester Brothers:
Wester Bros - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Wester Brothers were the US importer of Wester & Butz of Solingen and started operations in 1904.

Considering that Wester Brothers made some very clean styled razors (which is why I have collected them) I would put yours as being very early in the company's history and I would guess at it being pre-WW1. Also I would surmise that no domestic razors were being shipped from Germany to the US from 1914 to 1919 which would help nail down the age to being somewhere in the decade of 1904-1913.

Thank you very much for that great information!

Just remember that it could be a commemorative collector's edition sold in the last week of operations, so the guesses have to be treated with a pinch of salt so to speak.

I bought my first wester bros. solely for the logo. I have that razor as well as a no.32 a little de-fi and a lite wate edge. My no. 17 is in extremely bad shape with tons of hone wear. My .32 is is cracked. I provided no information you were looking for, but saw that had been done before I posted.