Thread: Autographed Signed Torrey Razor

Originally Posted by texasnorton

Here is some information that I thought was interesting from another thread. Also someone had said the whip line first appeared in catalogs in 1895.

I know I read some sort of history of Torrey and his company at some point, but I can't remember where I found it (though I am 99% sure it was on SRP or from someone on SRP; perhaps a link to an ebook/google books?)
Dylan, I have a cool (but long out of print) book called "The Razor Anthology" published in 1995 as a series of razor-related articles from Knife World magazine. I picked it up at an online used book store. It has articles devoted to the history of many razor makers, one of them Torrey. Maybe this was the article you're referring to. The quality of the articles varies from excellent to terrible, but the Torrey one is good. This notes below are gleaned from that article.

Torrey started as a strop business in 1858, and they imported razors from England and Sweden.
In 1880, a Sheffield immigrant named Joseph Turner joined J. R. Torrey, and they started making their own razors.
The earliest marking for the Torrey razors is three straight lines on the shank that read "THE TORREY RAZOR CO. / WORCESTER, MASS / USA".
The article notes an 1895 Torrey catalog in which the "usual" Torrey marking appears, which it describes as "THE J.R. TORREY CO." in an arc over a "U.S." and an arrow trademark with "WORCESTER, MASS" under the trademark.
The Torrey razors marked with the whip are called the "Whip Line," and were a low-priced line of razors which also began production around 1895. The blades were made of the same steel as the finer grades of razors, they just weren't highly finished. Some of them weren't even hollow ground, but plain ground. They simply have the name "TORREY" in an arc over the whip, which is curled around itself.

same info i found when i picked up a Torrey recently .. mine is also the "Whip Line" and is a wedge ..

Hope, this link would be helpful:
The J.R.Torrey Co.,Worcester, Mass.

Glad that this was pointed out to me. You guys rule.