Thread: Ebay Joseph Allen & Sons

Picked this up on Ebay for 9.99 + shipping. It doesn't look too bad and I think I'll be able to polish it up nicely. The scales don't look bad either. Hard to say really, I always expect to recieve something in much worse shape than it looked in the pictures. For 15$ though who cares. What do you guys think, see any problems I didn't spot?

I see one major problem.
It is shipping to the wrong address....
Looks to be in decent shape, you may have to take a bit off to find good steel,
(the toe is a bit hard to see and looks like it may have a bit of devils spit but I would have jumped at is well if I were looking.)
Good score,
let us know more when it is in hand

Originally Posted by pfries

I see one major problem.
It is shipping to the wrong address....
Looks to be in decent shape, you may have to take a bit off to find good steel,
(the toe is a bit hard to see and looks like it may have a bit of devils spit but I would have jumped at is well if I were looking.)
Good score,
let us know more when it is in hand

Define "devils spit".

The area that I would be watching for it is the discoloration we see from just below the "S" on size going primarily toward the toe,
this coupled with areas of pitting you see at the toe lead me to believe you may find it under there as well.

"Devil's Spit" A pitting that can happen hidden from the surface,
and follow if I remember correctly(guys please correct me if I am wrong here)
the traces/alignment of carbon in the steel forming worm holes for lack of a better visual term.
As you hone (and occasionally when you strop post honing ask me how I found this out) these hidden pits/bad steel will show itself.
I have dealt with a blade or two () that just a good buffing and all of a sudden Swiss Cheese.
This is one of the reasons you hear,
"Hone it up first"
"See if it will take an edge"
"Put it to the stones and find good steel"
before you invest your time in saving it.
I know I have wasted an afternoon before I found out, and I am sure most here that work on blades did the same starting out.
I used to get a blade in hand and would be designing scales for it before sand paper touched it.
Things have changed, I will do a light clean up and put it to the stones first (I even have some generic scales for homeless blades if need be).

Devils spit is a black deep rust often hidden from view,
when I see the discoloration on the blade,
accompanied by the pitting close by I am always as ready as I can be to deal with it.
If that is the case keep going until you find good steel but not all of them can be saved.

gssixgun put it like this

"The rust we call "Devil's Spit" is Black or Grey in color and looks shiny and smooth there is no indication of depth...It looks much like a water/soap stain that comes out with very little work... The difference is when you are using Sandpaper or Buffers with Greaseless as you start to cut away the "stain" you find pits and worm tracks below the smooth glassy surface... Hence why it has been given the nickname "Devil's Spit" because it is insidious, evil, wicked, stuff "
From a post on another forum.

I hope this helps and it is not meant to scare you off, just be prepared.
Having a slightly cynical view of eBay purchases has led me to some gems and much less disappointment.
This is compared to when I though "it's beautiful I can have that ready to go in no time"

Pat

Pat,
I loved all the knowledge you shared on this. I picked up a J A Henckels 78 yesterday at an antique shop for $21.50. I think its a score. I am going to have it honed by Rick. I cleaned up the blade with a little toothpaste and old fashioned manual labor. Was not bad to begin with. If I knew more about removing scales and re-installing, I would do that to get the complete razor to look awesome. I am not even close to getting ready to learn how to restore yet. I am getting ready to take on honing this winter. One step at a time with this hobby.

Package showed up today. I Hit it with some sandpaper just to see what I had and It looks pretty good, there is a little pitting near the toe and 2 small chips on the edge but not bad really. . I'm gonna go ahead and take the scales off and restore it. Here's some pics

That's a real nice blade you got there and in much better nick than mine was

Really nice!!