Thread: Old Razor

I just got this in the mail from a former co-workers husband who gave this to me after hearing that I was interested in straight razors. It is smaller than my others, 4.875" long closed. Bone scales, lead spacer, wedge blade with very slight hollow grind. The name Shepherd stamped on the tang. I'm guessing 1810's to 1830's? Thoughts on the age? Also wondering about the size, was this a travel size or did the size vary more in these really old razors?

It looks in excellent condition from what I can make out..
very nice.

It is, especially for being close to 200 years old.

Looks like a nice one!!

Great find. I know a few smaller razors were made, but at that age idk.

Good deal! You have some very generous coworkers!



Mike

Check the top of the spine. It very possibly has an etch that says 'NE PLUS ULTRA' or 'GROUND ON A 4 INCHS STONE'

From about 1805 to 1820 pairs of them were sold as 'portable razors' in small strop boxes.




Edited because I hit post too fast.

I can't really narrow down who made these Shepherd razors (I have one too). There were several in the trade, but they had other marks they most likely would've been using. Possibly it was Edward Shepherd's son?

If I have time today, I'll dig through Ancestry and see if I can come up with a plausible family tree.

I'd say you can comfortable assess that razor as 200 years old. The heydey of them really seems to have been 1810-1815, but every now and again I come across specimens that can be pinpointed as earlier or later for one reason or another.

Awesome, thank you so much! I did see the letter on the spine after I posted the picture but was having trouble making it out. Now that I know what I'm looking for it does say "Ground on a 4 inch stone"

I'd add that it's also in beautiful condition! It's quite rare to find razors from that era that retain any visible traces of their original polish.

If you look closely with a magnifying glass, you should see that the blade face and the tang are slightly different textures. The common practice at the time seems to have been to make the blade face a full crocus (mirror) polish and the tang a 'glaze', or what came off the stone.

I made an attempt to wade into the thicket of Shepherd-named cutlers, but whoo boy is that a dense maze of twisty passages all with the same name.

Statistically, it was probably a John Shepherd, but not the one who owned the WOLF mark. That's about all I can say for sure.