Tapered blades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScienceGuy

This is indeed the most interesting thing to me and what popped out at me first. I have never seen VA before and was also assuming that it was Victoria and Albert, but not sure. If so I would assume it was done to commemorate the specific year, probably the marriage. A very fascinating mark..

As to the spine width, it's not a hard rule that it should decrease exactly proportionally to blade width. I think as long as it held a functional edge it was fine. Yours likely would have had (or maybe still has traces of) the etching "An Excellent Razor" near the spine. I can see something there - is it legible or can you get a better pic of the etching? This also rules out any kind of wear since it would have been original on the blade face.

I like your theory that the mark may have been to commemorate the marriage! I will go with that as the most plausible explanation unless I somehow stumble into something more definitive.

Yes - the razor has the "An Excellent Razor" etching on it. Based on earlier posts that was one of the characteristics that led me to believe that this fell under the tapered blade style. Unfortunately the etch is extremely faint (I really had to play with the light to get a photograph of it). I am on the fence on how to handle restoring the razor with respect to the etch. I have had success using Kapton tape over an etch like this and then carefully hand-sanding the rest of the face on other blades. Given the pitting in the etch, how faint it is and the hone wear at the top of the etch I am not sure how good well it will look if I go this route. On the other hand I don't want to wipe away the provenance. Certainly open to suggestions.