Thread: Ramapo Co. no. 54 Warranted

Found a Ramapo Co. razor at a local used store. It has Ramapo Co warranted and No. 54 on the tang. It's abot a 6/8 spike point with no shoulder, and in the orignial nice looking black scales.
The razors edge is curved in a slight smile and looked reminiscent of some of the old razors I have seen in the forums.

A little more info, hence the edit:

William Gilchrists Celebrated Razor Steel c. 1851-1861. According to Goins He is listed
in the 1851 NY Directory under commercial & domestic hardware
merchant. In 1852 he is listed as a razor maker with his home in RAMAPO, Jersey City. (RAMAPO & RAMPO may be one and the same it was very common to have dies struck with mispellings) He moved to Philledelphia in 1861 and made Bowie Knives.
Above found here: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...e/message/2596



This same razor may be dated back to Civil war era.


Anyone ever heard of it?

It will be helpful.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...o-co-str8.html

Well, for what it's worth, I plunked down $15.00 and brought it home. And, this is what it looks like



And the whole thing....



It's curved in the cutting edge, but so is the spine, in about the same curve. Don't even know what steel or how tempered.

very nice looking blade. congratulations.

She dont look so bad, little hone wear that I can see and a nice smile. Polish the old girl, get her honed and taker out!

JoeD has one, and I shaved with it and loved it.

Yep, thanks Holli. Here's a link to the thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...o-co-str8.html

Have I been around here that long!? LOL.

This was the first ever rescale I did w/ Jr w/ whatever tools we found on hand.
Jr wants to leave the scales as they are to show where we came from. They function so I will leave them.

This is a really nice razor and shaves great!

Thanks for the link and read. As you see from the pictures I posted, they are similar on the tang, except for the no. 54, but different in the styles. Little to no information seems to have been garnered about them, though.

Could it be possible that the No. designation was the year in which it was made? For instanced this is a No. 54, and that would mean it was made in 1854, where the one of Joed has is a No. 53, and that would mean it was made in 1853, 100 years before I was born.


Update: I cleaned the metal part, and left the scales alone. Not the best, but an improvement and the picture was just not coming out right to show the clean AND the new bevel, but here it is...


A picture showing the end, but it doesn't show that it tapers to a bit thin a little before the edge, so I wouldn't think it was a wedge, but maybe 1/4 grind?


I honed it tonight with 1K, 4K, 8K Norton wet stones and then the Franz Swaty and final with the Pike Emerald stone. BOY!! I don't know what the Emerald Pike is but it never really showed any metal or much of anything on the honing, but looking at it under the 20X it did not look like there was anything for any scratches at all in the bevel. Simply a mirror finish. I stropped it and shaved some with it, and it's quite a smooth shaver, kind of like almost nothing. Now, I had shaved earlier this afternoon, but I did not get real tight with ATG passes, and this Ramapo was a comfortable skim across the face, for where I tried it... along the side and under the jaw line. Impressive,.... most impressive.