Thread: A little something odd

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.



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.



‘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.

Nice!
I always enjoy seeing rare ones, never seen one of these.
Can you refresh my memory on the dating of curved scales versus straight..?
I have an old razor with original scales that are curved like that, but the blade seems older than the scales, so I'm thinking I've got the wrong timeline in my mind for this.
Hey, great find! Thanks for the read!

Originally Posted by MikeT

Nice!
I always enjoy seeing rare ones, never seen one of these.
Can you refresh my memory on the dating of curved scales versus straight..?
I have an old razor with original scales that are curved like that, but the blade seems older than the scales, so I'm thinking I've got the wrong timeline in my mind for this.
Hey, great find! Thanks for the read!

There is commonly some thinking that the straight scales are older and curved scales come in later (for various relative values of earlier and later), but I’m very fuzzy on what the boundaries of early and late would be. I have 1780’s razors with curved scales and 1820’s razors with straight scales. Pre-1770 do seem to be usually straight, but the sample size is so small I’m wary of drawing too many conclusions.

Very cool!

Thanks for the info Zak!
I'm having some difficulty finding the thread relating to this particular manufacturer, not sure if it's the new web design.
Here is the one I'm taking about.
IIRC the guy who made this began in 1775 but I could be remembering wrong.
A Lisbon without the "cross" or box around name.
Has slightly curved scales.
Please forgive the thread hijacking.

Thanks for the post Zak! Always a good read.

Little information about maker. Design on scales looks like something from a crop circle...

Originally Posted by MikeT

Thanks for the info Zak!
I'm having some difficulty finding the thread relating to this particular manufacturer, not sure if it's the new web design.
Here is the one I'm taking about.
IIRC the guy who made this began in 1775 but I could be remembering wrong.
A Lisbon without the "cross" or box around name.
Has slightly curved scales.
Please forgive the thread hijacking.

That one's most likely Thomas Warburton. I'm not entirely certain because the Gales & Martin entry for him shows a cross above LISBON, and Sketchley's showed it the same way. So possibly it was Thomas' successor. The scales look original to me and I'd estimate to the late 1700's. I have a Joseph Hall razor from 1789-1800 with the same type scales -- kind of corrugated.

A small but important update to this thread.

Due to that phenomenon where certain patterns get grooved so deep into your brain that when you see something that almost fits, it gets 'autocorrected' from what it actually says to what you expect it to say, both Dr. Unwin and I misread the name of this manufacturer.

It was not Isaac Broomhead.

It was Isaac BROADHEAD, and that opens this up considerably but keeps it very interesting.

Some time in 1764 Isaac was born to a family of Quakers, Hannah and Daniel Broadhead. His father was a clothier by trade, living in ancient, farflung Kirkburton.

In 1777, Daniel sent his son Isaac to William Wright, cutler for the usual 7 year apprenticeship. Isaac took 12 years and was freed in 1789, when he promptly registered the EXIMIOUS mark.

In 1790 he took his first apprentice, Joshua Ward:



In 1792 he took his second apprentice, Samuel Warnes and his third, William Unwin, and his fourth, William Birkinshaw.

That is a lot of apprentices to wrangle.

in 1794, he married Deborah Brady, no doubt at least in part to help him keep his apprentices in food and clothes.



(How I wish all Sheffield weddings were recorded in as much detail as Isaac's! His includes a list of guests and relations, which is how I know that a descendant of Gamaliel Whitaker attended as a guest. 150 years previous, Whitaker, a priest, had angered his parishioners by supporting the Royalists in the English civil war, and in the scuffle for his arrest, his wife Hester was killed by soldiers and the locals will tell you her ghost still haunts the town). With that little bit of grim foreshadowing...

Isaac was doing well. He worked from his home shop on the duke's land, where he was taxed 3 shillings, 5 pence. He was just married.

On the 11th of March, 1796 he died.

He was 35 years old.

So there you have it. This razor was made between 1789 and 1796. Remarkably lucky for us who want to know more about when particular styles were made, remarkably unlucky for poor Isaac Broadhead.

HAH! That was awesome! Great detective work.

Thanks for the update, I like the form you presented it!

Also thanks for the info on my razor.
Yes, the corrugated horn. Brittle now, as it broke while dismantling. I'll fix and restore no prob.
And that over-lap in timing for curved designs of scales makes good sense. Took a while for the blades and scales to completely change, and then there were old designs being brought back to play the market.
Guess there must be a myriad of reasons though.