Three stubs, a rescale and two regrinds. Four razors that need a lot of help.

[Voidmonster]

Left to right:

• Clark & Hall / Warranted
• Rhodes & Champion
• G•S / Best Steel
• Joseph Elliot

All these came through eBay. I got most of them on different days, but by sheer accident of postal delivery they all showed up today.



The scales on the Clark & Hall are in bad shape, but I think I can repair them and replace the inlay. I'm guessing this one was made at some point between 1800 and 1820. If I had to make a more precise guess, I'd guess 1815 -/+ 2 years.

The Rhodes & Champion has clearly seen better days, and those modern celluloid scales look absolutely awful on it, as does the hone wear. Fortunately, I have another R&S that's in better shape, but this one is considerably older. It looks late 1700's to me. Like my other Rhodes & Champion, it has a forging defect that's caused a crack in the blade. Didn't stop the other one from shaving though!

My guesses for the G•S blade are, at best, extremely speculative. Maybe George Savage? Maaaaybe 1815ish? It's been reground without doubt, but it's a surprisingly large blade for the time. It was probably a full 8/8 wedge when it was new. Now it's 7/8ish and pretty hollow.

Late 1820's is my guess on the Joseph Elliot. They hopped on the Silver Steel bandwagon something crazy and the lack of any statement of material makes me think earlier than later. Not that early though. The blade has clearly been reground and it's got some rust that might well kill it's ability to shave, but it cost me only a couple of bucks and I didn't have any razors with that style of scales.



I've wanted a Clark & Hall blade for a long time. The scales are gonna be a huge amount of work to fix, but the blade itself is in pretty good shape, considering.

Ebenezer Rhodes was a fascinating guy. Aside from making razors and serving his year as Master Cutler, he was a poet, a playwright, an actor and a politician. He went broke writing Peak Scenery, and I strongly suspect he is the 'Sheffield Razor Maker' who penned Ten Minutes Admonition, a pamphlet that gleefully disassembled the anti-Jacobin Ten Minutes Caution. According to at least one biography, his partnership with David Champion was rolled up in 1814 because he was never around. Then Champion died in 1818, so that really put the skids on things. By the 1820's Rhodes was making razors with his own stamp E. RHODES.

The G•S is a mystery. I don't have any idea when George Savage started making razors. Nor can I really get a good sense of when this razor was made. The tail seems kind of stubby and the blade kind of primitive. I'd normally fall back on the scales, but in this case I think they may have been replaced when it was reground. It's certainly been repinned -- the indentation from the original collars is visible at the toe. Strangely, it's been repinned (quite well!) in a collarless style. The heel of the blade does poke out just slightly from the bottom. Not visible in this photo, but the blade edge is pretty uneven with a bit of a frown in the middle. The poor old fella is going to have to lose a bit more steel to get ship shape.



I've been a sucker for Joseph Elliot razors for a long time and I can't even articulate why. I just love the logo, and the first box I saw for them with the embossed sailing ship, though it took months before I ever had an Elliot blade to go with the box. This one is in a style I've seen a few times but never gotten my hands on. The jimps suggest later 1820's. It's a shame about the collars, but I really need to figure out a way of recreating those big domed jobbies anyway. The main reason I picked up this razor was the scales, with the neat lead clamp instead of a wedge.

There you have it. I've got my work cut out for me!

[regularjoe]

Well...I'm looking forward to the end result. My ebay eyes need some tuning I guess. I never even see these things. lol.

[Voidmonster]

Well...I'm looking forward to the end result. My ebay eyes need some tuning I guess. I never even see these things. lol.

The Clark & Hall wasn't there long, it had a Buy It Now price, so I Bought It Then.

Plus, the Rhodes & Champion looked like a boring modern razor because of the scales.

[WhiteLion]

I am posting so I can subscribe to this thread. I would have never seen the value in those razors or their potential that you see. I will be extremely anxious to see your progress in restoring them. I wish you all the best.

Randy

[PortlandJosh]

I was watching 3 of those. I love the brass inlay. I love to think about all the history behind razors that old. How many shaves have they seen. How many hands. And to think that the original owners rode on horses and in buggies. I don't know .... It's just amazing to me.

[Voidmonster]

I am posting so I can subscribe to this thread. I would have never seen the value in those razors or their potential that you see. I will be extremely anxious to see your progress in restoring them. I wish you all the best.

The Rhodes & Champion and Clark & Hall are interesting to me purely for the history of the companies, though I suspect both can be made to shave. The G-S razor I bit at the last minute when I realized it was an 1815ish blade that was comparatively huge. Razors of the time tended toward the actively small. All the others I have are 5/8 tops.... Except that Clark & Hall!

The Elliot is the only one I have doubts about making usable, though the Rhodes & Champion sure isn't going to be pretty, but like I said, I have another one in better shape -- I got this one because it's older.

I was watching 3 of those. I love the brass inlay. I love to think about all the history behind razors that old. How many shaves have they seen. How many hands. And to think that the original owners rode on horses and in buggies. I don't know .... It's just amazing to me.

It's the human part of the histories that really fascinate me. That's why the stuff made by Rhodes really rings my bell. He was a writer who was writing before, during and after the changeover from the long 's' (meaning the letter 's' was usually an 'f'), which I can only imagine was very odd indeed. Not quite as funky as when 'y' was being used for 'th' ('ye old' is not 'yee old', it's still got the 'th' sound, but a y is standing in for the letter Thorn, or þ: blame Caxton).

I have a lot of razors made before 1830 and it never fails to impress me when I can pick up a personal tool like that and use it as though it were new. It's a wonderful feeling to know about that long chain of connections.

And yeah, that brass inlay is kinda neat looking. I think those scales are going to be ravishing once cleaned up a bit. I haven't decided yet if I'll dye them back to pure black or retain the faded parts, just with full polish.

[Voidmonster]

I did some preliminary cleanup work on all the blades this morning and I took that Elliot to the hones. I was really worried that the rust blob near the cutting edge went all the way through -- and well, it may -- but I was able to get it sharp enough to do surgery with. Gonna shave with it today, then do more serious cleanup.

The Clark & Hall may never have been cleaned before, and it had a lot of rust, but I was able to get most off with a wire brush and it just left behind a nice patina. I think it'll clean up nicely. Fortunately, it'll be really easy to take apart since the scales are busted at the hinge already. My intent is to take a piece of matching donor scales and cut out a new pivot. I'll replace the inlay with a fresh piece of pewter or something (maybe this is the excuse I needed to teach myself to make a mold and melt down a bit of my bar of bismuth alloy solder?).

The GS blade will require complete disassembly, but it really looks like the hardest job is going to be fixing the bevel. It's currently a bit wiggly.

The Rhodes & Champion was pretty clean to begin with, though I'm not crazy about the honing job the previous user did. They tried to create a shoulder where none existed by grinding the tang flat up to where they wanted an edge, so there's this tiny, sharp flange for a toe. I'll probably get rid of that when I make new scales.

Ideally though I'd find some period scales to stick on it, but late 1700's horn is thin on the ground.

Also, it looks like the Elliot may originally have had an etching on the spine. The cleanup and regrind nearly obliterated it, and it was a very odd place to have an etching anyway, since whatever was there would necessarily get bisected by the hone (it went right over the spine ridge). Still, sad that it's so destroyed.

I'll get pictures of all this stuff when I have a chance, but my time is really tight lately.

[AntiqueHoosier]

Update on this thread?

[Voidmonster]

Update on this thread?

They all went back into the box and haven't been touched since. Though at some point I did at least hone the G.S./ Best Steel. It took a pretty good edge!

[Wolfpack34]

Back in the box? You sound like me...too many razors---too little time!