Thread: A couple of mystery razors...

Here are a couple of light restorations that I can't find any info. on. Thought I'd share and see if anyone can shed light on their origins.

First is marked "Cornell Bros. & Co, London" since the reverse is marked as "Forged and Ground in Germany" I'm assuming Cornell would have been a retailer?



The scales are Slick Black with a cream ivorine wedge, pinned in brass with domed washers. Blade is 5/8", approx. Henckels XI, jimped above & below with doubel transverse stabilizers. By style and based on Anglo-German relations in the first half of the 1900's I'm guessing it probably dates between WWI & WWII.
While the blades states German made I'm not convinced it's honest as the blade did not seem as hard to me as other razors I have that are definitely of German manufacture. That aside it is a fine razor and only required a couple of hours polishing and honing to recomission.

No.2 is a much earlier razor;


No marking on the tang what-so-ever, the only identification is "J.Pettifor." engraved into the scales which I'm guessing was more likely the owner rather than the maker??? The engraving is of extremely fine quality in an old Engish style font. Note; what appears to be dirt in the engraving is pretty stubborn and I think may have been a coloured filler.

The blade is approx. 9/16" wide with a notch and with a hollow spine, the x-section is kite shaped about 1/4 hollow with a defined shoulder at the tang.
The scales are ivory with a lead spacer and brass pinning. I bought this razor in a batch in which several had obviously been restored previously and allowed to degrade again. The hinge pin (domed washers) is different from the wedge end (plain rivet) so I suspect the razor may have been re-pinned.

It's a very elegant razor, going by the ivory and engraving I'm guessing it was a quality piece in its' day. My instinct is this razor belongs to the latter half of the 19th centuary tho' I'm a bit surprised a blade from this period doesn't have a marked tang.
Again this has only had a couple of hours work to get it recomissioned, it was a pain in the proverbial to hone but is a decent shaver.

I'm too new to really be of much help but the sort of rounded tang on the black scaled razor resembles a style that lots of manufacturers used in that time period. Quite notably, W.H. Morley and sons, Clover Brand razors all seem to have this style to them with almost identical etching 'band' near the heel of the blade. I think your probably in the right era for dating the razor.

It isn't uncommon to see blades made/ground in germany and then stamped with a distributors name so unless you can find some hard evidence of that name being a manufacturer, then your assumption is probably correct. I've also heard of cutlers FROM London, working in Germany, not sure if this would cause for a stamp to turn out marked that way. Remember, to put Solingen on a blade, the blade had to be produced/manufactured in the actual area of Solingen.

I doubt I helped much but I'm sure some of the 'old timers' around here have seen something like this before. Regardless, looks like a nice find and enjoy shaving with them!

Here's a listing with another razor, very similar to yours.

Old Cut Throat Straight Razor Cornell London - ref 5287

From this resource, apparently they were importers located in New Jersey and were only around from 1925 to 1926.

http://strazors.com/index.php?id=182...man_importers_