Thread: Antique Shop Razors

So I went to an antique mall in Williamsburg Virginia today and picked up a couple of razors mainly to practice honing on.

Golden-Rod Special
Ore County St Louis
Paid $12.00


Clark Bros
Cutlery Co
Made in Germany
Matchless is written across the blade in fancy letters
Paid $35.00


I cleaned them up a little with some CLP gun cleaner to bust a little rust and protect them. A couple of questions.

Does anybody know anything about these razors?
What can I use to restore the shine of the blade? The rust is gone but they still have the stains.

Thanks for any information.

Happy shaving,
Eddie

Welcome to SRP Eddie. Back years ago a lot of US companies, barber supplies, hardware outfits would source razors from Solingen makers with the USA company brand name on it. In many cases it is impossible to know. Razors from that period are usually real good if they aren't badly worn or abused. Metal polish such as semichrome, flitz, maas or wenol are effective at cleaning up some of the staining but it may take more than that to bring them to a lustrous sheen.

I usually do the metal polish with a q-tip and a paper towel and call it good. You can find someone to hone them in the SRP classifieds under member services. Post photos of the blades open and we'll let you know how they look as far as condition.

Can't tell you much about the razors, but to get a little shine back, use some #0000 steel wool with some metal polish. That should get rid of the tarnished and shine them up a bit.

I'd actually leave quite a bit of the stains, myself. I quite like a lot of patina on old blades lately...

Nice local finds! Some staining is actually corrosion (rust) that penetrates below the surface of the metal. Some rust is rad caused by an acidic reaction. This rust is mostly surface rust. The second type of rust is caused by an alkaline such as shave cream. This rust is black and it eats into the metal below the surface. We sometimes call it Devil Spit. The only way to remove this type of rust is to remove metal. Since both of your razors are hollow ground there is very little metal that can be removed and may change the shave characteristics of the razor. Fine steel wool or wet/dry sand paper may remove the light stains as would a shirt spin on a buffer but be careful of heat and flying razors when using a buffer. As long as the black stains are not on the bevel all is fine, just hone it up and have a go at shaving with them. Good luck.