4 Attachment(s)
A Wade & Butcher, Colonial Revival style
Attachment 89425
This thing caused me some serious annoyance.
There were two of them up on eBay. One in better shape, the other with a lower starting bid.
I really wanted the razor. Like, wanted a LOT. Enough to bid far higher than I normally do.
So I watched the two auctions like a hawk. As it came down to the wire, my choice appeared to be: pass on this one and go all-in on the better quality one, or bid high on this one and miss the better quality one.
I ended up getting both, but this is the only one that's arrived so far.
So! Unless I'm mistaken, what we have here is a Wade & Butcher razor made for the Amercian market in the Colonial Revival style -- a popular arts movement after the Worlds Fair held in Pennsylvania, 1876. I'd guess probably 1880-ish (which makes this one of the wee little babies in my collection). The blade is pretty clearly meant to evoke the late 1700's style razors while having all the modern conveniences, like good jimps and a blade that won't cut your thumb off when you use it because the edge goes all the way to the pivot.
Attachment 89428
The blade reads 'The Celebrated Old Army Razor 1776'.
This one has been personalized:
Attachment 89429
'R. Wilson, Danville Ohio'. The engraving is really very lovely. The tail of the 'R' curls in to a microscopic swirl. When I shake loose a little time for research I'll try to find information about this R. Wilson, but at the moment I've got a writing deadline breathing down my neck and hours spent researching really need to be for the story I'm writing and not my razor collection. ;)
The blade tapers a fair bit, being widest at the toe, somewhere in the vicinity of 13/16. It's not a huge razor, though it is relatively heavy and not very hollow.
This reminds me a lot of the modern cars designed to look both old-fashioned and modern; PT Cruisers, Mini Coopers, New Beetles, that kind of thing. I've always thought it was an interesting design goal, so when I saw these razors... Well. Yeah.
Attachment 89430
4 Attachment(s)
The other shoe has dropped.
I got the second Celebrated Old Army Razor today.
Attachment 89594
Attachment 89595
This one is a full 7/8 at its widest. It has more hone wear. It's always interesting to see how handmade things can be the same and different (Zen koan style).
What I wasn't expecting, and couldn't see from the pictures on eBay, is that this one also has a name engraved on it.
Attachment 89596
Unfortunately, this one isn't legible. I think it says Jonathon E. Holly, Woodstown. It appears to be the hand of the same engraver though.
BUT, that 'Woodstown' is awfully ambiguous. The second 'w' looks wrong. And of course so much of the name is missing that I have to make an educated guess based on the size. At some point someone used sandpaper to try and clean this up enough to read. It didn't really work.
Supposing that it is Woodstown, there is pretty much one option. Woodstown, NJ.
What's then interesting is that both Danville Ohio and Woodstown are quite early settlements and could be plausibly linked to Colonial era folks. Bolstering my theory that the razors date from 1880 or so, Woodstown doesn't appear to have officially been called Woodstown until 1882. Though there is no state engraved on this one, there's only one Woodstown that I can find while there are many Danvilles.
The great irony here is that, while this razor is in many ways in better shape, it's also got some of the most disfiguring damage.
Last night I spent some time with the micromesh and cleaned the worst of the crud off the other razor. Its scales are still in desperate need of fixing (and I have some plans for how to do that without creating new ones), but its looking much nicer.
Here's the pair of them.
Attachment 89599
