Thread: Wade & Butcher -J. Wiss & Sons Razor Pick Up

Originally Posted by jumbojohnny

Curious....Why would it be? The idea of burnt metal comes to mind...

But the answer is actually...no. The bluish color is caused by the poor lighting from my overhead desk light. If you hold the razor in hand the patina is the traditional grey and black. This razor should have no problems polishing up right away on the buffer - Now if I only had some more compound to use on the buffer.

Is just me perhaps, I see a bluish tint on a blade I always suspect over- buffing.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Is just me perhaps, I see a bluish tint on a blade I always suspect over- buffing.

I figured it would be cooking the blade.

Thankfully no, this one is very nice and will clean up quickly. The flourescent bulb in my overhead is really blue tinted.

I personally was wondering about the scales. I dont think I have ever seen such large scales for a 5/8" blade...especially the length. Good thing about it - I will use these scales on a larger W&B that I have. I plan to rescale this razor in the future.

IME sometimes a shaver forgetting to clean his razor in a timely manner, following the shave, will leave a bluish etching caused .... I think ..... by the lather. I have an old Joe Rogers that is like that and it honed up fine and is a great shaver.

Beautiful razor. I've never seen a W&B made for J.Wiss of Newark. They made their own razors, scissors and other cutlery back in the old days when USA was a mfg giant. Nice score.

The Wiss concern was started by Jacob Wiss. He had come to America from Switzerland in 1847, was apprenticed to an Austrian for a year and then set up his own shear-making company in 1848. Jacob died in 1880 and his son Frederick took over. Their catalogues for 1907, 1915, and 1925 all featured a number of razors, but no razors appeared in the 1927 catalogue, just scissors, snips and shears, so razor production ceased isomewhere between 1925 and 1927.

They had many lines of their own razors stamped with their brand alone. An advertisement from 1853/4 shows a razor, so they certainly had razors not many years after the company began in 1848, so maybe the early razors were imports from sheffield. There is an anecdote of Frederick Wiss visiting sheffield (he is said to have gone there several times) and asking to see 'the best shears you have' in a tradesmans shop - all the shears laid out were Sheffield made ones. The tradesman is supposed to have replied "you won't find them there sir" and reaching below the counter he produced a set of shears and gave them to Frederick, who was mightily pleased to see that they bore the 'Wiss & Sons' trademark! Apocryphal or not, it makes a good story!

1853 ad:



Another ad:



Regards,
Neil

Thank you for the historical information. I was reading a site about Wiss and the links to the advertisments, but unfortuantely I could not find a mention of Wade & Butcher. This razor will fit in nicely with my Sheffield collection and my NY, NJ, CT collection.