Thread: Vintage discoveries! please help me identify.

Hi I'm new to straight razors so I'm not very knowledgable as far as vintage brands are concerned. I recently had an opportunity to dig through my great-great-grandfather's old luggage set and inside I found 3 straight razors. They are in beyond awful condition but I'd like to fix them up and maybe use a part of my family history. As far as I can tell they are the following:


A Klas Tornblom from Eskiltuna, Sweden. I've heard that this is a pretty good manufacturer but I cant seem to determine the exact model of this razor:




This next one I'm very excited about. It seems to be a Bengall made by T.R. Cadman and Son's, who I've heard make fantastic razors. Someone mentioned that the fact that it has the engraving on the tang and that the scales are white instead of the usual black makes it significantly rarer. I don't know if that's the case but I'm certainly interested! My only one concern is that there is a sizable chip out of the front of the edge. I think it might prove difficult for my restoration. I took photos of it below.


This is the final one and also the most elusive in terms of identification. It seems to be a Tuckmar, another manufacturer people sing praise. However, the engravings on the tang don't seem consistent with what I've seen in photos of other Tuckmar's. First, the words are all in english and while I have seen some like that they seem to be far in the minority. Secondly the words engraved seem different from all of the others I've seen. On the emblem side of the tang, instead of "made in Solingen, Germany" it says " M. & Ground in Germany" which seems odd considering they stamp Solingen on everything they can. Also on that side, it seems like it has been marked with the number "165" I'm not sure what this refers too. On the opposite side we run into the same exclusion of "Solingen" Normally the bottom line would read "Silver Steel Solinger". Here, it reads "Finest Silver Steel". Does anyone know if this is a special model or what can account for the differences?





Thanks for any information all you who are much wiser than me can provide. I hope you found these as interesting as I have! If you know that any of them are particularly rare, old, or great shavers please let me know!

Best,

Kryonas

Those can all be made into fine shavers and even more so since they are heirlooms. Hard to tell from the pics but that Bengall might even have ivory scales. Congrats on your find and welcome to SRP

They do look like nice finds. The Tornblom looks ivory too. Do the scales have a hard, glassy surface or are they more coarse and porous feeling?

The surfaces are more dull than the other razor I have which is plastic. I think that might simply be due to the dirt though. That being said they're definitely polished so I wouldn't describe them as "coarse". Is there a test I can do to find out?

Well, I mean coarse relatively speaking Usually ivory has a more defined grain pattern than bone, and ivory is smoother and more glassy, while bone is more porous. Ivory scales tend to be thinner than either bone or plastic too.

Looks like I hit the jackpot. After going over various tests and identifiers of ivory for an hour or so it seems pretty certain that they're both ivory.

Found the tornblom razor in the SRP database. Tornblom, Klas "Unspecified" 5/8 2 - Straight Razor Place Wiki

I generally like Swedish razors, though I've never owned a Tornblom. Looks like they were well kept because ivory very commonly has cracks around the pins. Your great-great-grandfather evidently was a man with a taste for fine razors .

Congrats on the find and those are definitely good razors. Although I don't own any Klas yet, but I have 6 Swedish razor and they are all sweet razors for shaving. Do restore all of them and use it. Good things in life are meant for that.