Thread: Wosty Frameback anomaly, need opinions

I am fairly new to the straight razor world, I still haven't used one yet (soon...soon), but I have already developed RAD. Since I cannot compare shaves yet my two favorite razors are chosen purely by looks. They are my ERN Craftsman and my Wostenholm & Son Frameback (the IXL improved swiss) that is the topic of this thread (not truly a frameback I suppose, but it has that look). Upon receipt and inspection I have some concerns about the originality and integrity of this Wosty that I purchased on the Bay. I have searched for hours for a picture of another razor like mine to put my mind at ease but to no avail, so I am posting my concerns to the experts here.

The grind of this razor seems odd and does not seem to match the other Wosty Framebacks I have seen (pictures of). It looks as though the blade was a piece of one thickness that was ground thinner from the bottom to halfway up the blade. The grinding seems fairly straight and quite symetrical from one side of the blade to the other, but again I have not seen this on any other Wosty Frameback. Also, every other Wosty Frameback I have seen has engraving or etching either on the blade itself or on the spine or both, mine has none. The box the razor came in reads "GEORGE WOSTENHOLM AND SON DOUBLY CARBONIZED IXL RAZOR REGISTERED 10TH SEPTEMBER 1850". I have seen other razors with the Doubly Carbonized bit engraved on them which again worries me since my Wosty does not have any engraving to this effect. My biggest concern is that somewhere along the lines somebody "reground" this razor and perhaps compromised the temper. If this razor was reground it was probably done some time ago since there is a bit of tarnish on the suspect area. This razor cuts arm hair better than any of my other razors (still far from shave ready, even to this newb) so I suspect that if it was reground it was also re-honed and possibly shaven with after the fact. Enough of my ramblings, here are some pics:













So there they are. Hopefully somebody has seen one like this before so my mind can be put to ease, but if it looks like there is something terribly wrong please let me know. I would love to be able to make this thing shave ready and use it once I develop some honing skill but if it has been bastardized it might turn into something to practice on. Also are these horn scales? They seem to have some sort of grain but they don't seem like any wood I have ever encountered before. One side is shot but the other is fairly decent.

That is indeed a frameback and a legit Wosty; that design is rather uncommon among razors in general, but there are a few different Wosty's like that. Given the marks on the front of the blade, it looks like she was ground a bit at some point. This is, unfortunately, not uncommon on older razors; sometimes a knife person thinks they'll put an edge on, or someone does it to try to clean the razor, or who knows what people are really thinking. Usually, it's just cosmetic, but it can ruin the temper of the steel. I don't see any burn marks, so the only way to know will be to hone her up.

Thanks for the quick response. Like I said I really like the looks of the razor so it is good to know that all hope may not be lost. The bit about a knife person trying to sharpen it makes a lot of sense since somebody with that type of interest probably wouldn't be aware of the fact that the spine is a built in honing guide unless they had knowledge of straight razors also. I know a lot of knife guys but I have not yet met anyone in person that is into straight razors (at least to not to my knowledge).