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I've done some looking but couldn't seem to find. I have two razors that were my great grandfathers which were brought back from England by my grandmother on the Queen Mary after he passed away. There is some rust on the tang and I can't quite make it out. I can clearly make out "Shel" but what is beyond that is a mystery. Any thoughts? My guess is that it says Shell but I'm not sure.
A picture might help.
Figured that was coming. What are the rules in here as far as pictures go? I've been on many forums over the years and most don't allow members to post pictures until they reach a certain number of posts. I'll take a couple this evening and post them up if I'm able to.
No rules,post them up
the only two rules... without a picture it did not happen or does not exist AND in focus please
jim
Well I can't have anyone calling me a liar. Now I'm damn sure going to go home and get some shots of this. :beer1:
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In taking a closer look it does indeed appear to be another L under the rust. A shame really because the blade is in pretty good shape.
On the other side although hard to read without a magnifying glass it says "Real German Hollow Ground"
I would say it was made by Royal Dutch Shell plc, indeed that's what got them into the oil business in the first place - they were looking for something to protect this blade from the rust.... And they weren't very good at geography and spelling, they meant Real Duchland Hollow Ground, but somebody inadvertently misspelled it and then it was translated wrongly.
How's that for a story?
Kind of like so many that entered Ellis Island with one name and walked out with another. LOL Thanks! Now I'll have to go check out the history of them. Until now I only knew who and how it got here in the states years ago. My grandfather has a house full of things that came over on that boat and he's been slowly throwing it away over the years. This is one of the many things I stuffed in my truck a few months back to save from the garbage man.
In case some are wondering if I posted these up to gather information to sell. You won't see this for sale anywhere nor will you see the ERN Primus that was with it. They will be in the family for a long time as my ten year old daughter has the collecting bug already and wants every family heirloom she can get her hands on. She gets that from me.
You sound a little despairing about the rust, but it didn't look that bad to me. If you've got a dog toenail grinder, try putting a dremel wire brush in it and brushing away that rust. DON'T use a full Dremel tool--too fast and too powerful. The toenail grinders are slower and have a clutch that stops them spinning before they rip fur from between Rover's toes. Some plain old metal polish (Flitz or Maas) might also remove that rust, and the second L will be as clear as the first one.
Best wishes to you
Just looked at your pictures again. The rust spots are in the same place, more or less, on opposite sides of the tang. That suggests the scales might be a little fritzy. Worst-case scenario: celluloid scales exhibiting cell rot. They break down and release either acetic or nitric acid vapor, depending on which kind of celluloid it is. To tell if they are celluloid scales, heat the end of a paper clip in a match or lighter flame, then touch it to some part of the scale you can't see. If you get a little waft of piney-smelling smoke, you've got celluloid scales. The only thing you can do when the scales start going bad is get them off the blade before they damage it any further.
The other thing that could be happening is if they're horn scales, some sort of moth or beetle larva can make its brief living and munch out a little cavern. The moisture from their life, and also held by the little cavern when they've moved on, can rust the blade.
It may well be neither of these things, could have been the blade was put away wet many decades ago. But do check the celluloid thing; that can get pretty bad.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the cell-rot idea - doesn't look at all like that to me, and dark celluloid hardly ever exhibits cell-rot - even when you have a scale with lots of marbled colours in it, the parts of the blade that are not attacked are under the darker mottlings (the scientific reason is that dark colours require much, much more binder and pigment than translucent colours and therefore have very small amounts of the out-gassing material in them). Furthermore they don't look like celluloid scales to me either - hard to tell from the picture I know, but they look like some sort of pressed leather (cuir bouilli). You often get a kind of green verdigris reaction around the pins with this stuff too - although that isn't conclusive, these pins do seem to have it.Quote:
Originally Posted by roughkype
It simply looks like the tang or inside of the scales were wet/damp when the razor was put away - naturally, the moisture is kept in intimate contact with the scales where they press tightest - at the pinnings.
Just my 2 cent worth.
Regards,
Neil
