It occurs to me that I haven’t been sharing some of the oddities and finds I’ve gotten lately. So I’ll rectify that with something especially fun.
Attachment 305211
This would be from the very tail end of the 18th century. Stamped into the middle of the spine is ‘CAST STEEL’. Very typical for razors from about 1790 to the mid-1810’s. After that, use tapered off significantly.
Of course the business here is that manufacturer’s stamp.
Attachment 305212
‘EXIMIOUS’
At first, I was pretty sure it was a made up word. It’s not though. It’s medieval latin for ‘noteworthy’.
This mark does not show up in either of the two Sheffield directories that include the marks used — Sketchley’s 1774 and Gales & Martin from 1787.
As I’d usually do in a situation like this, I sent a picture of it off to the Cutler’s Company to see if Dr. Unwin has any records.
Indeed, yes.
Isaac Broomhead registered the mark with the Company in 1789, just a few years after Gales & Martin was published. Fortified with his name, there he is in the Universal British Directory from 1795ish.
Then, no other listings at all.
Clearly he was related to one of the multiple other Sheffield Broomheads, right?
Right?
Zero Isaac Broomheads in the apprentice registry.
Genealogy searches turned up two of them. One born five years after the mark was registered — and after a lot of searching, born to one of the usual Sheffield suspects — and one born in 1765 to a laboror in Chesterfield. Along with his twin brother Abraham.
And that is all I can find. This one is probably from the latter end of that range. It has the decorative markings on both sides of the scales and a solid tin wedge.
That, then, is the EXIMIOUS razor.