Thread: My Sweeniest razor yet!

I won this on eBay for almost nothing, which surprised me since it's obviously an early 1800's razor. But it was sold as 'Tzell & Son, Ouverie St'.

Which, admittedly, is exactly what the stamp appears to say.





The razor is in pretty bad shape. The active rust is surprisingly minimal, but the edge looks like it was used to saw boat anchors. I'm guessing it was made sometime between 1810-1820. Possibly 1800-1810, but the shape makes the later range seem more plausible.

And the scales... Oh. Ouch. Completely chewed and rotted through on one side. They're tortoise shell, with a silver inlay.

But man did I want to know who made this. I couldn't turn up anything on a 'Tzell & Son', or even an 'Ouverie St.'

But then something clicked in my head and I remembered another street name like that. BOUVERIE street. In just a moment I'd found it. A London street.

So I scrutinized and scrutinized and thought, maybe it was two initials and Zell & Son. So I started searching on Zell & Son, Bouverie St. London.

I turned up a Livery and sewing gear maker on Bouverie Street named Nortzell & Son. They made neat little stamped livery buttons for servants, and I was even able to turn up a couple of pictures of their maker's stamp on the back. Pretty clearly the right maker.

I cannot find any reference to them making straight razors, but they started making buttons and sewing stuff around 1825, so my guess here -- and it's only a guess -- is that the Sheffield makers had taken enough of the razor market that the London smiths weren't doing so well with razors, so Nortzell & Son switched over to something else.

Where this story gets interesting is the location. Bouverie street is a short little street, about two blocks long, off of Fleet Street. It's the road where Whitefriars Priory was.

If Sweeny Todd had been a real person, it's the road under which he was hiding his victims, because his shop faced it on Fleet Street.

These days you can still see the crypts of Whitefriars, but you've got to go to the back of a law firm and go into their basement. There's a sign for it though, if you're interested.

Also of note, Bouverie street held the offices of News of the World up until very recently.

That is the story of how I got the closest thing I could to Sweeny Todd's razor.

(If I've got any of my facts wrong, I really, really want to know!)