A tiny surgical razor by Maw, Son & Sons.
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I forgot to get a picture of the pile side with the military Broad Arrow/Crow's Foot, but it has an unambiguous one. That picture is from before I cleaned it up.
The company began in 1814 when George Maw bought a surgical plaster factory (in this context that means more bandages than casts) in London.
In 1826 his son John entered the business, and their name changed to George Maw & Son. By that point, they were making all manner of surgical goods. His second son, Solomon joined the fun times in 1828. By 1836 George and John were both retired and it was all up to Solomon.
Solomon was real good at the biz, and they grew into a little empire.
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The years did what years do, and in this case that included a fire that burned down their factory. But Solomon pressed on, and in 1860 his son Charles came into the fold. The company was renamed S. Maw & Son. That's the stamp I've seen the most of. They made a lot of the field medical kits that were used in the American Civil War, so Maw tools go through various specialist antique dealers with some regularity.
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In 1901 things changed up a bit and they became Maw, Son & Sons Ltd., which was the incarnation of the company that made this razor.
I can't really be sure when this razor was made. It's got the military mark on the pile side, like I said (and forgot to photograph), which implies that it was probably made during either the first or second World War. The style is a bit more WWII than WWI, since it's got the brass scales for easy auto-claving. This one definitely saw some use based on the pitting and corrosion when I got it. It had been lightly ground to get rust off the blade, but the tang was untouched. The metal scales were pretty dinged up.
What's especially curious about this is its size.
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It's tiny! In that spread is a 9/8, a standard Sheffield 5/8, a tiny Birmingham MAB razor and then this little guy.
All laid out like that, it looks like a Hobbit's razor.
My best guess is that it was meant for surgical prep on small areas, like gunshots. However, when I got it, it had last been used to shave someone's face -- based on the shaving cream and whiskers stuck to the inside of the scales.
(I ran it through the ultrasonic cleaner before I sanded it, and I wore a respirator for all the sanding, just to be safe).
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What the pictures don't really do though is give you a sense of how appealing this little guy is. It's got good weight, but because of its size doesn't feel over balanced.
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I haven't honed it up yet, but I expect it'll take a great edge.
