Thread: James Barlow & Sons ECHO

Just got this in and looking forward to cleaning it up. Looks worse than it actually is as i just started cleaning it up a little and looks better already. Has some pretty cool scales that i think are wood and are in great shape.


This is a pretty heavy blade as you can see from the wedge pic! Appears to be from around 1830-1850 so being that it's about 180 years old I think it survived pretty well. Gonna do a basic clean up and leave the patina ( it's a fetish of mine keeping them with their character) see how it hones and shaves!
BTW, how did they do the makers stamps that long ago? Looks like somebody hit it crooked and the left side is very light. Missing the J in James and i think the address is supposed to be 121 Allen but it's missing the first 1!
Any hints on cleaning it without removing the patina would be welcomed as well as any other tips and ideas!
Thanks for looking,
Newell

They are very nice razors and provide a very nice shave, definitely wedge grind - mine had scales beyond salvage, so here it is rescaled in streaked horn, but it's one of my favorites:

That's going to be a gorgeous wedge when you clean it up!
Nice find..

I have one Barlow and its a fantastic old wedge and a great shaver!

I'm with Phrank...Great razors Barlow's!

Originally Posted by NewellVW

...snip...
BTW, how did they do the makers stamps that long ago? Looks like somebody hit it crooked and the left side is very light. Missing the J in James and i think the address is supposed to be 121 Allen but it's missing the first 1!
...snip...Thanks for looking, Newell

There was a dedicated group( industry) of fine engravers using watch making fine engraving machines, with and without power, who made the stamps. I can also believe that they made and then stamped them into very hot steel to make further hardened molds to smash hot steel into to make the final stamps in the quantities needed. Not any different up until the latter part of the 19th century and that with the decline of the Guilds and with better, readily available, engraving machines and now CNC cutting of the stamps. The invention of the Typesetting machines certainly improved the engraving machines to make the huge numbers of dies required by the Linotype and Monotype machines used in most print shop and newspapers..
Your theory may be more correct than mine!
~Richard

I like the Barlow's a lot. They are less plentiful than W&B, W. Greaves, Joseph Rodgers & Sons & so on.