Thread: R. Wass Jubilee Razor

Recently acquired, a scarce set by maker R. Wass from Sheffield (another of his here: https://straightrazorpalace.com/show...rge-damer.html). This one is the "Jubilee Razor" and is possibly for George III's Golden Jubilee in 1809. A paper insert is included that has some instructions. Robert Wass had a patent for "certain improvements to razor handles", and this may be what that patent is talking about. The handle is a spring-knife style, and clicks into either position - like the paper says, it really does change the weight at the blade end by changing the balance.









Best of all, there are two of them! Until today at least, one of them is now on the way to another collector.

That is interesting. I never actually thought of intentionally shifting the weight to make a razor blade heavy. I just assumed that makers made them to balance equally. Well that is going off of the razors that I have held and used. Maybe that is why it is so rare, it didn't become that popular. The old adage of "don't fix what isn't broken" comes to mind.

Yes, I think he was a penknife maker. Likely he stayed too long at the pub!

Originally Posted by JSmith1983

That is interesting. I never actually thought of intentionally shifting the weight to make a razor blade heavy. I just assumed that makers made them to balance equally. Well that is going off of the razors that I have held and used. Maybe that is why it is so rare, it didn't become that popular. The old adage of "don't fix what isn't broken" comes to mind.

With all the extra mechanical bits it really just makes the whole thing heavier, and you can kind of accomplish the same thing by just tilting normal scales back. He got a patent for it, but I think there's good reason it never really caught on.

Seeing this makes me wonder if blade heavy razors were once marketed better for shaving. Could just be someone trying to improve on something that doesn't need improvement to sell products.

Blade-heavies are just fine...........The scale-heavies need adjustment.
Scales-up!

Regardless of how it does or does not work, you have a wonderful piece of history on your hands!

Personally, I make a really nice piece to display the razor and paperwork in.

Thanks for sharing! :

This is really sweet. I'm curious if changing the configuration changes the ability to shave in tight corner or weird grain directions...

Certainly, the innovations and experimental things they come up with to shave are nothing new.
So many things like this in the razor world.

Having gotten this in hand yesterday (hello, other collector here), I started researching Wass in earnest today because I wanted to restore the box and recreate the paper instructions. I was hoping to find Wass' trade card so I could make a good high res version of the paper label on the top of the box.

Renzo Jardella has a third example of this set and his has a more complete label.

In any event, I've had zero luck finding a trade card, but what I have found is... Let's just go with interesting.

First up, hard facts.

Robert Wass, son of a jeweler, purchased his freedom from the Cutler's Company in 1808:



Robert Wass filed for a patent on his 'improvement' on November 21st, 1809.



The first newspaper advertisement I can find was from the Caledonian Mercury, Midlothian Scotland:



Within a year of filing his patent, he was already complaining of imitators:



By July 1811, variations of this ad ran in the Cheltenham Chronicle:



Ads of that sort ran for about a month, and then no more was ever heard of R, J, or W. Wass, proprietors.

Thus ends the hard facts about this razor.

The quick summary is:

Robert Wass bought his freedom in 1808 (a year after the other razor ScienceGuy links to above!). No master is listed, nor a name for his father. Just that his father was a jeweler (which I believe based on this razor).

He applied for and was granted a patent for this razor in 1809, and was selling it promptly at the beginning of 1810. By 1812, there are no more ads.

The extended research and speculation is where things get very, very curious.

Digging around through Ancestry trying to figure this fellow out I came across census records from 1841 and 1851 for Robert Wass, born 1780ish, living in a suburb of London, listed as a Cutler and a Cutler & Perfumer. He seems to have died in 1851. The census records his birthplace as Farnesfield, Nottinghamshire. That's about 25 miles Southeast of Sheffield, and just outside Sherwood Forest.

This is all a plausible connection, but there's very little in the way of hard evidence (parish records, burials, wills, etc).

Wass never appeared in a Sheffield directory, so he didn't stick around there long, and the bit where he purchased his freedom does suggest he was an 'outsider'.

Okay. So, with those facts in hand, I turn again to the newspapers...

And find that Nottingham, around 1814, had a notorious burglar named Robert Wass. He was captured with a pile of gold in mid 1814, but had escaped by 1815, and was implicated in numerous other crimes, for which several different men were sentenced to death for being his accomplices.

I can find no record of the notorious Robert Wass being recaptured.

There's little reason to believe the newspaper ads claiming the Prince Regent patronized a cutler who came in from outside Sheffield and had been in business for barely two years.

Joseph Rodgers had been in business for 70 years before they became vendors to royalty.

Summary of speculation.

It kind of looks like Robert Wass was a talented artisan and also a conman who turned to burglary after his cutlery business failed, was apprehended, escaped, stole a bunch more stuff and then moved far away to quietly carry on as a cutler again.

Alternately, an aspiring social climber fled to London after his cousin became an infamous criminal.

As for the razor... It's surprisingly neat. The pictures don't really do justice to how compact and solid the whole thing is. The box would easily slip into a pants pocket. The blades fit very snugly into the handle, and the gimmicky levering mechanism is also very well engineered. It all just feels good in-hand.