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Thread: Maker origin: Stampmark VR
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10-07-2012, 04:35 PM #2
The scales are probably horn and not bone, simply because it was the more commonly used material, especially for pressed designs.
The V(crown)R mark indicates that it was made during the reign of Queen Victoria (V.ictoria R.egina).
The Silver Steel and Warranted were fashions, the way Titanium and Carbon Fiber are these days, and they suggest (though it's a very fuzzy kind of suggestion) that the razor was made in the earlier part of Victoria's time on the throne, so 1840's to maybe 1860.
'The Old English Razor' is another clue, and another vague clue. The trademark was used by a lot of people and may have fallen into generic use at some point. If memory serves it was owned by John Barber in the 1820's, but used also perhaps by Isaac Barber (there was litigation). Much later it was used by Joseph Wostenholm (NOT George Wostenholm).
Scales aren't the greatest way of judging who made a razor when, though. Men regularly worked the streets of major cities doing razor repairs in the mid-1800's. Mostly they reground blades that had been honed too much or too badly, but (and I am assuming here, so please don't assume this is truth) I would guess they also did repairs like replacing broken scales.
The total lack of speculation on who made the razor is because that's just not very knowable. None of those marks are specific to a single maker. Possibly, at some point, a maker's stamp or etching was on the blade, so you might examine that more closely and in different lighting conditions, but most likely it's one of many razors turned out by the Sheffield razor industry in the middle of the 1800's that did not bear any originating mark.-Zak Jarvis. Writer. Artist. Bon vivant.