Thread: Robert Wade and the challenge of sorting history.

In part because of this thread and the wonderful sense of history in imbues, I recently purchased a Wade & Butcher and eagerly await its arrival in the mail. This will be my first straight razor. Given I understand they can be a bit hefty, it might not be the first straight with which I shave.

Thanks again for a great thread.

Originally Posted by OKAllen

In part because of this thread and the wonderful sense of history in imbues, I recently purchased a Wade & Butcher and eagerly await its arrival in the mail. This will be my first straight razor. Given I understand they can be a bit hefty, it might not be the first straight with which I shave.

Thanks again for a great thread.

You're very welcome!

Unless you specifically got a hefty Wade & Butcher, I wouldn't assume it is just because of the name. They made a wider variety of razors than anyone I can think of. I have late models that are paper-thin, and early ones that are small as well as huge slabs of steel and everything in between.

Ooo I was bidding on that wade, glad you ended up with it
Great thread!

Originally Posted by DennisBarberShop

Ooo I was bidding on that wade, glad you ended up with it
Great thread!

Three is my limit. Any others I'll be sitting out.

Nice, hit me up if u see one lol

I've been a SRP member for several months now and this will be my first time to post anything. I've been following this thread for while and it is so interesting, it's like a good book you can't put down. So keep investigating and posting and I will keep reading and learning.

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

I got this off of eBay because I felt certain, based on the grind of the blade, that it was an late 1820's model and thus made under Robert Wade's name by his widow, Jane.

However Neil Miller wasn't too sure about that dating when I showed it him, and now that I have it in hand, neither am I.



There's absolutely no doubt that it's old. I've seen numerous razors dated to the late 1700's with this basic style and it's a style that clearly continued into the 1810's. Supposedly, Robert Wade began making razors in 1816, but the man is surrounded by mystery and there's very little solid information about him. He died in 1825.



The other Wade stamped razor I have was purchased from Robert Doyle who dated it to roughly 1815. When you see both razors together it really looks like a slam dunk that Doyle was wrong and my new Wade razor is actually the older one. The straight scales, the small shoulderless blade (it's about 4/8), the simplistic stamp, all scream 'old' far louder than the design features of the R. Wade / Warranted blade.



Compare it to this very early Thomas Scargill blade. Note that the scales are very similar (though the Wade razor has a lead wedge and the Scargill does not).

So where's the challenge here? Clearly this Wade razor is from the beginning of Robert Wade's known production, right?



Except, the grind of the blade, with that pronounced lip along the spine, is quite similar to this Hiram Gilbert stamped razor (probably made by Joseph Elliot) in the 1830's. To the best of my knowledge, no one was grinding razors like that in the 1810's.



But the lip isn't that pronounced compared to the Hiram Gilbert. Plus, razors were regularly reground by street vendors who set up foot-powered wheels and offered to clean and fix old razors. Maybe it was reground into the 1830's style?

Or maybe Jane Wade made it herself, desperate for income after the death of her husband, and with only the skills she'd acquired by watching her father or brothers or spouse at work. She continued to produce razors with his stamp for four years before the inevitable caught up to her.

I seriously doubt I'll ever know. But there are some questions that MIGHT help.

Are there other very early razors with a pronounced spine bulge?

Is the lack of a first initial on the stamp any kind of indicator?

Those are things we might be able to find out.

Sorry to dig up a relatively old thread but I was wondering if you ever found any more information out about the WADE stamped razor that you acquired (the top one)? I have one with the exact same lettering, although a slightly different blade style, and wondered if it really was a Robert / Jane Wade....

Originally Posted by eaglesgift

Sorry to dig up a relatively old thread but I was wondering if you ever found any more information out about the WADE stamped razor that you acquired (the top one)? I have one with the exact same lettering, although a slightly different blade style, and wondered if it really was a Robert / Jane Wade....

I apologize for how long it's taken me to reply to you, but I've been in the midst of moving, buying a house, and now preparing to move again.

Yes, I can tell you a good deal about Robert Wade now. But if you can post pictures of your razor, I can be more helpful.

At this point I am entirely certain that his wife Jane continued selling razors with his name on them for several years after his death, and his son of the same name went to work as a salesman for Wade & Butcher in America. He produced razors from 1815 until his death in 1825, and Jane continued making them (from the same factory as Wade & Butcher) until her death in 1829.

Thanks very much for your reply. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for the razor to arrive so I don't have any pictures to post yet. I'm hoping it's a delay at customs somewhere and not a complete loss. Anyway, from the pictures I saw before I bought it, the stamp is exactly the same as the razor in the first picture in this thread but the blade shape is more similar to the second ( R. Wade Warranted) razor in the thread. The scales were described as wood and looked quite rough to my eyes so may well not be original (?) I bought it on eBay a couple of weeks ago actually (and probably overpaid for it) so you might have seen it on there.

Ah! Yes. I have one in that blade style. When you get it, you'll find that there's probably a very faint etching on the top of the spine. It reads 'Ne Plus Ultra'.





(It's there in the second image, really)

These were smaller 'travel size' razors, but made in the same style as the much larger 'Magnum Bonum' razors. Many Sheffield producers made them and they were all more or less the same with very slight variations in the way the tang and the blade met. The most distinctive feature is that all of them have a tang that 'droops' slightly from the blade.

As near as I can tell this style was most popular between 1805 and 1815. Or at least, that's when all the newspaper ads that I can find for them were published. There were later versions of both the 'Magnum Bonum' and 'Ne Plus Ultra' razors, but by then they were a somewhat generic razor shape with the marketing slogan etched onto the face of the blade instead of the spine.