They didn't smile cos the camera exposure was damn long at the beginning of the century. For the pic to get out right the model had to stay still for some time. Kinda hard to hold up a smiling expression when there's nothing to smile about cos your whole body aches and you'd be a lot more pleased to shoot the photographer rather than pay him.

On topic, I hate that most of my blades come from Ebay and like someone said above, finding history there is like finding a needle in the haystack. My ancestors used Russian razors or German military ones, of which there's no trace left. So I had to buy Sheffield after Sheffield - even sold Filis for Sheffields - and I keep imagining they belonged to Dickens' characters. The feminine ones.