On the back roads of New England about an hour from home I passed by an antiques store that I haven't been in since last summer. It's the classic old house and barn set up with the store in part of the barn. If the barn doors are open it means the store is open. I was delighted to find a Wade & Butcher and a John Barber. Both have issues but it was nice to unexpectedly find them and for about the cost of a modest dinner for two. You just never know what's waiting inside one of these places, I'm glad I didn't just drive by without stopping.
The Wade & Butcher has some sort of pressed wood or hard leather replacement scales that unfortunately trapped moisture next to the tang resulting in significant corrosion there by the pivot and maker's mark. It's a big blade at 17/16ths and the spine is 5/16th wide (I know, I know... bigger is not always better, but I wasn't just going to leave it there!:D). The John Barber has broken scales with a neat old fix. It seems someone was able to pin a thin piece of metal inside the scales to hold them together. I assume the broken scale was rotated out, the metal pinned to it, swiveled back in and then pinned through both scales. A neat old fix that looks like it did not required unpinning the razor itself.
