Thread: Wade & Butcher Flea Market Find

Found this one at the local flea. Payed 30 for her. Almost no pitting.

Spine Saids "Celebrated Fine India Steel Set Ready For Use"
On the Blade "Diamond Edge Razor"
Tang "Manufactured By Wade & Butcher Sheffield"d"

Nice find. That should clean up really nice.

Nice score!

The stamping looks to be pretty deep on that one, so you should be able to clean her up pretty nicely. The scales look to be in good nick as well, so be sure to keep them intact if you do decide to do some sort of restoration!

Good luck and keep us posted!

Oh my !!! What a priceless find. Well done . These are beautiful. Love the writings on the spine

That should be worth $30. Great looking razor.

Congratulations on your very good luck. That is a most handsome razor! Are you planning to hone it yourself?

What have you gotten yourself into? A lot more work than you can cheerfully evaluate in cash terms, probably, for that razor is looking at you as intently as a puppy in a pet shop, and whispering "Restore me!"

It's a good subject for restoration, because the pitting is shallow enough to remove with no damage to the stching. It shouldn't be hard to keep most most of the sanding down near the edge, to reduce the hone-worn bevel, but it isn't at all bad for its age. The original scales, almost certainly in pressed horn, are a big plus, as they are in condition too good to hand you any hard decisions on whether to keep them.

I am working on a Wade and Butcher Superior Concave, which is a sort of hollow-ground substitute, produced by lengthwise grinding, and it has almost the same India Steel inscription on the side of the spine. The SRP Wiki lists it as in production from 1830 to 1837, a short life probably due to losing out to true hollow-ground models like yours. "India" evokes an era, already a thing of the past, when there really were advantages in Indian steel, sometimes known as Damascus from which the route which the land trade brought it to Europe. The chances are that it is early Victorian, and how many things that age can work as well as anything you can buy today? For I bet this one will.

I'll be honing and restoring this one myself. If I run into problems with the honing I'll just get Maxi to sort it out for me.

Nice find! Unfortunately, my flea market connection appears to be played out at the moment. Some jagaloon buying up all the restorable straights that don't cost an arm and a leg...wait, that was ME! Anyway, great looking razor, it should clean up nicely and be a great shave. Have fun.

Great find mate, love that blade. Very nice!