G.H. Cowen & Co.???

Gents,

Found this razor at my Mom's place over the weekend. We're pretty sure it belonged to her dad, who was a barber for a period of his life. I'd like to get it restored, but was wondering if anyone could provide some more info about the company and some insight on the scale material. (pics below)

I wasn't able to find much on the internet about G.H. Cowen in Sheffield; I searched the forums here and attempted some quick googling but came up short.

As for the scales, they seem light and brittle. They're somewhat translucent, dark brown and are a little dinged around the edges. One scale has a crack at the end. My guess is horn or bone, but I'm new to straight razors so it could be some mysterious plastic as well.

Is there any way to restore scales or do most folks replace them? Since it was in the family I'd like to keep it all original, but I'm not sure if that's feasible.

I also picked up a Larkin, in pretty good shape, for $10 at an antique shop on the way home. From an old thread on Larkins, it sounds like this would be a good razor to learn to hone on...that way I won't hurt the Dovo Special that I've been learning to shave with for the past several weeks.

Any thoughts you all have would be appreciated. In the meantime, I'll enjoy the early stages of RAD and start looking through the classifieds for restoration services.

Thanks and have a good weekend!

-John

[IMG]file:///C:/Pics/Nunu%27s%20Razor/Smaller/CIMG1986.jpg[/IMG]Attachment 55056

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Doesn't seem to be a lot of information available. I found that the name is George H. Cowen and that he bought the George Turton & Platts steelworks (specialising in railway buffers, springs and files, etc) in 1910. Apart from this side of the work (which they carried on) they also produced cutlery, knives and razors, some of the items date to the late 1800s.

Regards,
Neil

Thanks for the research Neil, that's definitely more than I was able to find and the dates seem about right. Too bad these things can't talk!