Thread: They're Here! *Pics*

Cha Ching! A Crown and Sword with a notch and a nice Engels Leader! I have a few boxes like that! It would have had leather on the back side for stropping!
Sweet! Congrats!

Congrats BigJim!!! You must be thrilled. The razors look like they are in great shape too!

What are your plans now? Are you going to have them honed and start shaving with them? Do you have another razor that you are already shaving with? I forget - did you already get a strop, soap, brush, etc.?

Originally Posted by Utopian

Those are both great razors. Please consider adding them to the Family Jewels thread.

If you are interested in shaving with them, I strongly suggest that you first practice with a different razor. Beginners have an uncanny skill at trashing their razors. The same thing goes for restorations. Practice with a razor that does not have a sentimental value.

I will definitely add them to that thread. I'm going to get on the phone with my grandma and see if I can get more of the details. I'd like to put a card in the box to eventually hand down with the Crown & Sword so that my sons/grandsons will have a record of who all in their family has owned and used that razor.

I agree with not using them to begin with. That's why I picked one up on the bay (for learning honing-I've done knives, but never razors), and I'm still shopping for one to start shaving with...eyeing the classifieds and whipped dog (there were two there I wanted but missed). Definitely need a benchmark to judge other experiences with.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Cha Ching! A Crown and Sword with a notch and a nice Engles Leader! I have a few boxes like that! It would have had leather on the back side for stropping!
Sweet! Congrats!

Thanks for the info on the box, and the kudos. Any idea on what age that style of box might indicate? There are two tiny holes in the end of it (about the size of a staple hole) that might have held on a leather strop. I don't remember for sure, but I think my great great grandfather passed away right around '39. So at a bare minimum the C&S has got to be that old. I think my great grandfather passed away in the late sixties, but hopefully my grandmother can help me nail down the dates.

I am fairly sure that the strop box predates the razors by a good long time! If you swing it all the way open, , it looks to have a divider near the pivot. That could have been for paste. I have one with a divot under there with some remnants of a red paste. One side would have been pasted and the other, not.
Those are neat!

Originally Posted by mrbison

Congrats BigJim!!! You must be thrilled. The razors look like they are in great shape too!

What are your plans now? Are you going to have them honed and start shaving with them? Do you have another razor that you are already shaving with? I forget - did you already get a strop, soap, brush, etc.?

I took too long getting that last post typed up. Had to pray with the kiddos and get them to bed.

The razor situation was mentioned above. I've got a strop coming in tomorrow, used, but hopefully a good one...a cheap gamble. And independently I picked up an antique hone off of e-bay that will serve as a starting point for me to learn razor honing. I'm the kind of guy who has to know how things work in order to enjoy using them...so while I won't rely on my honing skills for some time, I will have the tools to learn it myself.

The wife got me some shave soap for V-day, and I'm shopping for a brush. We're getting ready to move (in two+ weeks) so I may have to make due with bits and pieces for a while, but by this point in the game there's no stopping me. I WILL STRAIGHT SHAVE. I WILL.

And yeah, I am stoked.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

I am fairly sure that the strop box predates the razors by a good long time! If you swing it all the way open, , it looks to have a divider near the pivot. That could have been for paste. I have one with a divot under there with some remnants of a red paste.
Those are neat!

There is a thin wooden divider down toward the pivot screw. I thought it might be for a roll of cloth strop, or maybe tobacco...who knows. Paste might be a better bet though.

Thanks!

Got this addition to my collection off the oh-so-maligned e-bay. Supposedly a "Black Diamond GH Pumacher" a little sanding revealed a Genco from Geneva NY USA. Ugly as it was I found myself with a great deal of time on my hands (thanks blizzard/ice storm) and did some clean up on it. I even shaved with it, with some measure of success after some honing. Tomorrow I send off my other two to Utopian for honing. We'll see how they compare to my rookie work.

Not sure how I ended up without a shot of the other side of the blade after cleanup. It looks just as good.

Wow what an excellent turn of events it must be nice to have something so old passed down like that. Your a lucky man indeed

ian

Originally Posted by Utopian

Those are both great razors. Please consider adding them to the Family Jewels thread.

If you are interested in shaving with them, I strongly suggest that you first practice with a different razor. Beginners have an uncanny skill at trashing their razors. The same thing goes for restorations. Practice with a razor that does not have a sentimental value.

+++1 on that.And Jim,E-bay is oh-so maligned because so many new fellas go right directly to The Bay without a shred a good knowledge on what to look for.There are so many bad deals waiting for a newb to come along.What makes that so sad,is the fact that better deals and dealers can be had right here on SRP in the classified section.The members look out for each other here in that respect.And The vendors advertised here go by the same agenda as well.You can get good soaps ,strops etc of very good quality here.That's why it's all here for the new and the old members,..info,product and camaraderie that's what it's all about.Excellent blades you have and Welcome to SRP !

Originally Posted by Nightblade

+++1 on that.And Jim,E-bay is oh-so maligned because so many new fellas go right directly to The Bay without a shred a good knowledge on what to look for.There are so many bad deals waiting for a newb to come along.What makes that so sad,is the fact that better deals and dealers can be had right here on SRP in the classified section.The members look out for each other here in that respect.And The vendors advertised here go by the same agenda as well.You can get good soaps ,strops etc of very good quality here.That's why it's all here for the new and the old members,..info,product and camaraderie that's what it's all about.Excellent blades you have and Welcome to SRP !

I agree about the e-bay thing. There's a lot of crap on e-bay, and starting out I had no idea what to look for or how to judge. Thankfully I found SRP about the same time and was able to quickly narrow the field. Still, it was kind of dumb luck that things turned out as well as they did with this razor (and the hone I picked up). I should have asked for more pictures of the blade. It turned out that it wasn't even the brand that the seller said it was. I got lucky it turned out to be a Genco...though I suppose I could have raised a stink if it had turned out bad. There's just a huge gamble when it comes to e-bay. I'd already bid on this by the time I found the classifieds here and found anything I was particularly interested in. AND, I did not intend to shave with this razor really at all. I picked it up as a cheap razor I could practice honing/stropping with and if I ruined it somehow I wouldn't feel too bad over it. I would definitely advise any new guys to be very cautious with e-bay if they feel they must shop there. Most of the items in the classifieds are from guys/gals here that have good reputations--and they're real people not e-bay brokers, or faceless companies.