Thread: Help ID Razor

So my father, who hasn't shown a desire to wet shave, let alone straight shave, seems to have been bitten by some RAD. He ran across a handful of straights at a couple of antique shops and picked them up for me. This one is particularly interesting to me, but I can't find much on it.



Someone did some "interesting" honing/grinding work on it. The stabilizers have been shortened, the spine shows considerable hone wear, but the bevel appears consistent and relatively small. I have done NO cleanup work on it in these pics, in part because I'd really like to polish up the scales and am not sure how to go about it. They look and feel different than any of my others and show some signs of being a natural product, but what?


If you know anything about F.A. CLAUBERG, Tonsorial Gem, or these scales I'd really appreciate the info. I will be playing around with this to see if it's possible to shave with it...but if the blade turns out to be trashed, I'm going to try and save these scales as I really like them and have a couple blades that need new scales anyway.

Thanks for your help!

Peace,

per Goins
F.A. Clauberg's Tonsorial Gem Made in Germany c1885-1926.

The logo (font and phrase tonorial gem) is shown in there too with year 1891.

Looks like Fredrick A Clauberg Company located in NY city. 27 Park Place. Fredrick A a Otto Clauberg owners until 1912, and Otto was no loner there.

There are multi listings in Goins regarding F.A. Clauberg, and for this particular razor, above description seems to be the match

**edit**
pm'd you screen shot of that Goin's page.

Clauberg, F.A. & Co - Straight Razor Place Wiki

The blade does look to be well loved but it can be made shave ready if you put the time into it and can live with a less than perfect appearance. I have a few less than perfect appearing blades but they do shave well. As for the scales, they look like a plastic of some sort but I may be wrong. In any event, some 'Plastic-X' (spelling may be off) fro an auto part shop will get them cleaned ad sparkling again. Tooth paste will also work if you go lightly. Cotton swabs, tooth brush, tooth picks and dental floss along with a soft cloth are the tools I would use. Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

Thanks everyone for your input!

I looked over the pics this morning and read the responses. It MAY be plastic, but one of the things that was mentioned in the Ivory threads I read was that faux ivory had consistent lines, and all of the lines that were shown as fake were relatively straight and equally spaced lines. The pictures do not do justice in revealing the striations on these scales, but they are wavy, with some wider and some narrower, almost to the point of looking like a wood grain.

Last night I spent some time honing and it appears as if the odd damage to the blade might have been done by someone who at least had a cursory knowledge of how to hone as the blade is straight and took a bevel nicely. Tonight I will shave test and see how it goes. I'll also give a shot at cleaning up the scales to see how they turn out and may take more pics if there's a marked difference.

I will have to sand the blade before I can polish it as right now you can't wipe it off without it grabbing the terry cloth towel, but I have the means to do that, and will put in the time if the shave is decent.

I'm not much of a "razor snob" when it comes to looks. If it shaves well, then it deserves a good home.

Peace,

Originally Posted by BigJim

Thanks everyone for your input!

Tonight I will shave test and see how it goes. I'm not much of a "razor snob" when it comes to looks. If it shaves well, then it deserves a good home.

Peace,

Now that's is the right attitude. The Tonsorial gems are well known to be good razors. I think you have a fine one there, and you will discover that it shaves exactly as it should. Excellently!!!

Great finds, let us know!!

Best,

M

I spent about an hour cleaning and sanding and polishing on this thing last night. It could certainly use more, but I was pretty happy with the initial progress. After cleaning up the scales I'm pretty convinced that they're plastic. They don't feel like the other plastic scales I have, but the grain is more wood-grain like than ivory like.

Some pics...because we all like pics.

It cleaned up nice! They did do an extra nice job on the graining as they are very uneven and almost looks ivory on the wedge end on one side! Good work!