Thread: Calling on the historical experts, I'm stumped! An unassuming mystery razor.

I read in the discussion that these famous razors with the punch in Sanskrit were just the result of experiments of Faraday and Stodart. I think if they did make a punch, it is the purpose of selling them. If I am right, it's good because it has a chance to find other copies

Originally Posted by lohar

I read in the discussion that these famous razors with the punch in Sanskrit were just the result of experiments of Faraday and Stodart. I think if they did make a punch, it is the purpose of selling them. If I am right, it's good because it has a chance to find other copies

James Stodard was using the Sanskrit wootz in his advertising cards well before he'd even met Faraday. I'm guessing he used the symbol on goods before they had done the experiments together.

His paper with Faraday does mention that he felt the Rhodium and Iridium-Osmium alloys were well suited to commercialization and he intended to do so. However, his health was failing at that point and it's very unclear how far he went past what he'd written about.

hope he has made ​​some other

Here's a brief summation of what I know about the special alloy razors.

The two razors in this thread with the wootz stamp were almost certainly part of the experimental alloys tests. At least two others were made and kept in a greenhouse, but if they weren't removed after Stodart's death, they are very likely destroyed.

Faraday had kept at least one other of the special alloy razors, possibly from the small batch of palladium-wootz alloy. That one he gave to his father-in-law and it is now in a museum. The NMSI online collection describes it as platinum alloy, but Stodart and Faraday made enough of those that it would likely have a marker to identify the alloy and it does not, only wootz (there's a picture of it earlier in the thread).

Charles Pickslay attempted to replicate the Stodard and Faraday experiments and produced two razors which he sent to Faraday. Later, Faraday gave them to John Wilson Croker, an Irish statesman and poet.

Near the end of Faraday's life a Doctor Percy wrote asking after the razors. Faraday couldn't remember what had happened to them, but thought they'd gone to James Stodart.

And that's the total of what I know.

There's the slim possibility that more exist. It's my dream to find one, but it's a dream I doubt will ever be realized.

Thank you for all these details.