Thread: That's not a razor!

Pretty soon I'm going to gather up all of my 'not razors' and get them photographed for a proper thread here. For now my latest and best example.



From left to right: 7/8 George Savage, The Mab, Charriere.

The subject of this post is that odd duck over on the right. I got it knowing it was not a razor, even though the eBay seller thought it was (and even though shipping cost me more than the item itself).

What is it?



That's a locking mechanism. Slide it toward the toe to open and toward the pivot to lock it either closed or open.



It says 'CHARRIERE'. The letters are tiny. I'd say minuscule, except they're all capital letters. Each one is only slightly larger than the flat end of a 1/16th inch brass rod.



It's a pocket scalpel. The scales are steel lined and genuine tortoise shell. Near where you'd grip it there's almost microscopic knurling on just the metal part. It actually does help grip. And this time, I have no doubts about the material. Several of the dark spots have been chewed by insects and the coloration goes all the way through the material, and his well predates synthetic plastics.

It was made by Joseph-Frédéric-Benoît Charrière.

Also, that's not all rust on the blade.

Medicine before germ theory was a messy business.