Thread: Different sort of Wade and Butcher

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

but what about the geometry?

The rest of the geometry doesn't seem anything special - it's a typical sheffield medium hollow ground swayback, may be a little more curvature to the spine than most.

For some reason I perceived in the OP that the geometry was off mentioning the spine width being narrow.
I actually have had a hollow ground razor with a wrap of brass making it like a frameback.

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

For some reason I perceived in the OP that the geometry was off mentioning the spine width being narrow.
I actually have had a hollow ground razor with a wrap of brass making it like a frameback.

Yes, I suppose a hollowground frame back would be possible! What kind is it? Here is a Henckels with a dropped spine, but the spine is much thicker. Of course it is a much larger razor! I posted it and someone thought it was missing a spine frame as well!

I have a very similar Swedish razor - can't remember if it is an E A Berg or a Hellberg, with the same dropped spine. Although it seems overkill for a frameback with the thick spine and hollow grinding, I suppose it could be for that reason. But it could just as likely be for sitting a hair-cutting guide on - I have seen a few old smiling razors with that design. The one below (Berg, Solingen) has a guide fixed in place - no cutout or drop in the spine though, but the same principle:



The guide is simply fitted by tightening the screws in the above example - there is no hole drilled in the razors spine to take the central screw like I have seen in some examples. If the guide was shaped to fit on top of the spine and 'spring' tempered so that the side flaps gripped the hollow, then the screws would be unnecessary - I have seen this type of guard, too.

Regards,
Neil

Definitely looks like it had been a frameback in its prior life.

Still, it looks very nice!

Rodgers and W&B has so many cool models that aren't that common.

Well, it took some time but now I know that it is NOT a frameback, but a Guard Razor!

The guard-razor goes back to Jean Jacques Perret (1730-1784), a Parisian master cutler. In 1762 he devised a wooden guard to slip over a straight razor to turn it into a sort of plane, with just a bit of the blade protruding. Reason? Safety. Stopped people from cutting their ears off! Other guard-razors like the Plantagenet made by Charles Stewart of Charing Cross, London, and exhibited at the Great Exhibition in 1851 had a guard that was fixed by screwing it onto the spine:





A similar version was made by John Kinloch of Philadelphia in 1864. His patent says: With the guard in place , “… the razor may be used without danger of cutting the face by those who are maimed or wounded, and by those who have to shave themselves in situations and under circumstances which render the operation by an ordinary naked razor both tedious and dangerous.” Perhaps it should be pointed out that he took part in and survived some of the biggest battles of the Civil War, including Gettysburg and Antietam.

in 1877 cutler and importer Michael Price of San Francisco was selling his guard-razor:



Price's razor has the cut-out, which seems to have taken over from the screw-on mounting. This razor, made by Priest & Co. of Oxford Street, c1890, also has the cut-out spine:



I still can't find that A E Berg, though!

Regards,
Neil

Tom,
You always seem to find these unusual and exquisite looking blades . Great eye my friend and beautiful W&B.

PS: I don't know much about restores, etc, but you don't think it's an after market restoration project that groove on the spine, do you ?

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Cheers,
Robert