Thread: Lucky finds at a local market

Saint Marcellin is a nice place for a whole lot of reasons. Cheese is only one of them.

As a countryside small town though, it leaves a lot to be desired antiques markets wise (the best place being obviously Paris, but nobody in their right mind should spend there life there IMHO)

Si when I heard there was one happening, I had to go.
I never find things to my liking these days, but well, if I can find something to finance my wood turning endeavours that's worth the trip.

Rainy day, only 4/5 sellers. But they had room to deploy their stuff.

Fram from Solingen with a nice back. That's going to need some work but quite worth it.


Now we're talking.
I absolutely won't keep it, I friggin hate Le Grelot in terms of sensations.
But 13/16 and in that state? That's one happy guy down the line. I even have a puma-like bakelite box to go with it.

Now let's get to the real interesting stuff.
In the market itself I only briefly saw the razor (I never spend too much time inspecting the interesting stuff, in case the seller starts doubting his prices), I had a nice surprise at home when inspecting the box







Guionin Ainé, Thiers brand number 7 (like Dumas is 32 and Fontenille 134 for example) later bought by the Hospital family (Le Grelot), which is why "Fleur d'Acier" (Steel flower) is often seen as a Le Grelot frameback.
That's what French sellers would call at a time a "Swiss razor" vs Swedish razor for a fixed frameback. (I can explain why, but it's another story)

The other blade is, even rusty, "NOS", complete with its original paraffin paper.

And we even have the original leaflet that went around the razor that was crammed at the bottom.

In here we learn that to that "the razor of the futur" is made with Swedish steel with added tungsten ("Wolfram") and electrically treated.
Which is, of course, mostly commercial poppycock.

And last, but not least

A vintage ivory scaled Londonian !
Verinder St Paul, which is very well documented in another post here (and thanks a lot). We even had a descendant as a member.

I'm delighted

Nice finds!

The Grelot cleaned up nicely

Finished on a La Lune but it was already pretty sharp, so started at clear water on Ardennes Coticule.


The Fram was not pretty. Iron wooled or something akin.

Better but honestly I need bigger wheels for polishing. Gotta setup that rig...

Had to start from bevel setting and boy is this a sturdy one... Finish on Thuringe stone, once again, fitting.

As for the British



So far so good. I never clean the scars on these old ones, I feel that negates their history. Matter of taste and opinion.

Will hone it later

Very nice. Yep, some are best with minimal work.