Thread: At last, the tale can be told!

So, some time back, I posted about a USPS mishap where a razor I’d bought from an online auction house had gone missing. (I’m still waiting for them to process my insurance claim!). I mentioned that there was another razor besides the pair that got separated.

The time has finally come to talk about that one.

In a pretty thoroughly remarkable turn of events, I have nothing to say about the manufacturer because I have very little idea who it was!




(I cleaned that up a bit from the condition I got it in, though it was pretty good to start with).

First things first. No idea who R H was. Those initials and that time period are ... not helpful.

Secondly, that repair was done by the collector who sold it at auction. It looks like they opened the pivot end to lightly clean the blade and it snapped off the ivory and rather than lose the inscription, they made two thin pieces of silver that they pinned the ivory back together with. There’s another very thin piece inside the scale, and a washer on the pile side of the pivot pin.

Now then. To the business.

L. Loraine Smith.

That L. Is for Loraine.

Loraine Loraine Smith. Son of Charles Loraine Smith. There’s quite a bit of material out there about him, but the short version is that he was a Reverend and a bit of a character.

Quoted from Mary Boyle: Her Book, a society lady’s collection of anecdotes about famous personages.

Another sporting ecclesiastic who frequented our meets was the Reverend Loraine Smith. He hunted in a purple coat, alleging as his reason that it was an episcopal colour — but I cannot tell what authority he could adduce for wearing bright yellow gloves embroidered in every tint. His Reverence was always well mounted, and was a keen sportsman. He had a pretty living and a good church in the neighbourhood, but he surprised his parishioners very much by altering the whole disposition of the tombstones ; he thought they looked awkward and untidy in their actual position, so he had them all taken up and rearranged according to his fancy in lines, crosses, squares, etc. One Sunday morning, a very cold winter’s day, he had performed the service to a scanty congregation, and on going up into the pulpit, instead of opening his sermon book, he pronounced the following address:

“My dear friends, if you require it, I will preach you the sermon which I have brought with me, but if you are as cold and hungry as I am, I think you will prefer going with me to the Rectory, where you will find some cold beef and some good ale.”

The reason it’s taken me a while to get around to posting this is that he did a number of silly paintings (his father was famous for his animal portraits, but L. Loraine would definitely not become famous for his artwork).

Today I received this, which is an original cartoon he did in 1832.



A closeup of the caption:



That reads: “Church Militant, or stepping out of a cart made easy. Scene Denschanger. Dec. 20th, 1832”.

In the lower left his his signature.



And one of those figures is a self portrait:



Also noteworthy: the razor has the number 3 scrimshawed at the point of the scales, so it was undoubtedly part of a larger set. Probably a fancy dressing kit.

It’s possible that R H was a London outfit, or a luxury goods maker, or one of about six zillion small Sheffield outfits.

It doesn’t look particularly large, I know, but it’s oversized in all proportions (note that in the self portrait he is by far the tallest person there, and accounts suggest he was, indeed, a beanpole of a man). The size is midway between a typical early 1800’s Magnum Bonum and my gigantic Magog razor.



It’s so incredibly rare to come across a razor with a personalized inscription that is both traceable and plausible. In this case, I have no reason to doubt he really did buy the set in 1814, and clearly kept it in good shape through his long life.

The date places it squarely within the period covered by Smith’s Key and it fits right in.

So, while the fancy John Barber pair from that lot of razors was something of a debacle, this one is a straight up winner. And I paid way less for it, too.